A Symphony In White
by il-bambino
Summary: Paris, 1942. A young girl is set upon by the dangerous Dieter Hellstrom, but is saved by a bear-like man wielding a club. However, his interests in the girl are in competition with two others'. And there is more trouble afoot...
1. Something In The Darkness

_1942_

_Paris, France_

Bruno was asleep. He had been curled up next to Katerina for the better part of three hours. He had fallen asleep in one of the rare snatches of silence from their parents' fighting. She listened; there was little noise from downstairs. All she could hear was Bruno. His soft breathing sounded like the wind in the branches of the tree outside her bedroom window. Katerina laid a finger on his cheek. His skin was soft, velvety. In the moonlight that poured into the room, he looked pale and sickly. She slid her legs out of the bed, and rearranged the bedclothes to cover her little brother. As she planted a kiss on his cheek, he rolled over and stretched to fill the warm space she had left.

Realising how cold it was without the protection of her blankets, Katerina crossed to her wardrobe. Gazing over her clothes, she made the sudden decision to leave the house. She pulled a long-sleeved blue dress with a white collar over her underslip, and, buttoning it up, crossed to her cupboard. Digging inside, she found some white socks and brown brogue shoes.

The shoes made small clicking sounds on the wooden floor as she left the room. The light was off in the landing. Blinded momentarily, she felt with her hands. The stair rail was warm beneath her fingers. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Katerina tiptoed to the living room door. Suddenly a loud bang echoed through the hallway and the shouting began again.

They were arguing in mixed languages: German, English, and a little French. Katerina understood every word. She hated her parents fighting, and the reason they fought; her father was a Nazi. High ranking and influential. Her stepmother loathed it – she thought that the Nazis were all Jew-murderers and rapists. Katerina was inclined to agree.

'Please stop,' she whispered, her hand resting on the door to the living room, where her parents were still shouting. 'Think of Bruno…' Suddenly she heard the maid's restless footsteps climbing the stairs from the kitchen, and, to avoid capture, she ducked into the cupboard beneath the first-floor stairs. The maid knocked on the door to the living room and the loud voices stopped.

Peeking out through a crack in the door, Katerina saw the maid enter the room. Quickly, she sprinted from her hiding place to the front door and pulled it open. A sudden anger fuelled her down the steps and onto the street. Cursing her father and stepmother's foolish, selfish behaviour, she ran across the road, leaving footprints in the light layer of snow that covered it.

_Damn you, damn you to hell! _She yelled in her mind. Why could they not be civil? Why could they not think about Bruno? Their constant arguments were killing him! He did not deserve this, not at all. She tried to help him, tried to comfort him, but she knew that deep down, he would not recover from this. _Damn you! _She spoke the words this time. Her breath came out in huffs of white smoke, swirling through the night air.

Her anger burnt out, she started to realise how unwise she had been by leaving the house. It was cold – snow had started falling like a pale mist, spiralling down from some unknown cloud – and Katerina was wearing nothing but a thin woollen dress. She shivered, and thought of her bed, warmed by her sleeping brother's tiny form. But she couldn't go back, not yet. She couldn't face the sticky sweetness of her stepmother, the cold distance of her father, the sad, lost eyes of her little brother.

Bruno was the offspring of Katerina's father and his second wife Maria, who was French. He had been born a year after Katerina and her father had moved to France – it had taken her father three days to find a love interest, and then two months for them to marry. He was her half-brother; they shared blood. That was all Katerina needed – some small link to the outside world, some escape from the mournful loneliness of being the unwanted daughter of a widowed Nazi.

Rue Chápon was drenched in moonlight and snow. The white flakes seemed suspended in the air, frozen in time. The buildings loomed either side of the narrow street, spilling light and noise onto the peaceful scene. Slowly, the buildings down the left side of the road melted into a high brick wall – the boundaries of a park. Flurries of snow came and went, like the crescendos and diminuendos of a Chopin quartet.

Bored of the cold, Katerina's body had become numb; she was oblivious to the precipitation dissolving on her skin. A sudden spurt of warmth came when she stepped underneath a streetlamp. It was emitting a faint heat. She breathed deeply and leant against the lamppost, feeling the cold metal through her dress. It was strange, the sense of displacement that surrounded her. She felt unreal, like she was in someone else's body. The quiet that she had longed for was finally upon her.

Raucous laughter and a series of wolf-whistles broke her silence. Katerina jumped a little and looked up towards the source of the noise. Three men were stumbling down the street towards her, beer mugs still clutched in their hands. She could see, as they grew nearer, that they were wearing the unmistakeable grey uniform of the Nazis.

'Hallo! Sie sind der Verkauf von Waren?' _Are you selling? _The man who spoke wore an arrogant smile and his eyes, although clouded by the alcohol in his system, were mischievous and full of anticipation. She stared at him, fear causing her muscles to stiffen. After what seemed like an age to Katerina, but was only seconds, the lead soldier – the one who had spoken – stepped forwards. His uniform was that of Hauptsturmführer – a captain of the SS. He dropped his beer mug onto the floor, where it landed with a dull clunk, and stepped onto the pavement by the side of the road. Katerina took a step back until she felt the wall against her shoulder blades. The Hauptsturmführer leant over her, one hand on the wall behind her head.

'You're very pretty,' he said in German. 'Why don't we have some fun?' All sensibility and calm fled her, and she shrunk into the wall. The Hauptsturmführer thrust his free hand up her skirt, his thumb caressing the flesh of her thighs.

'Hauptsturmführer!' The voice was smooth, arrogant. The man leaning over Katerina took a step back, a little shocked. He turned and, after a second of staring, came to attention, his heels clicking together and his arm shooting up into the 'Heil Hitler.' The other two soldiers imitated his movements exactly.

'If I find you drunk again this side of Christmas, I'll have you transported. You can leave.' The three grey-clad men hurried down the street towards the Boulevard de Sébastopol, passing the man who had shouted. He stood in shadows, his face hidden by the black hat he wore. His black, calf-length leather coat reflected the small amount of light that the street lamp gave out, and his hands were covered by black gloves.

'Danke,' Katerina whispered. And then all her calm fled her and she stumbled and collapsed against the wall. Arms encircled her and she clung to them with all her remaining strength. She looked up into her rescuer's ice blue eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. The man frowned; the crumpling of his brow didn't suit him at all.

A slice of orange light fell across the man's face, and suddenly she recognised him.

'Major Hellstrom?' she asked. She was ashamed to hear her voice shuddering with terror. The man helped her up – she leaned on him heavily.

'Katerina, is that you?' He was speaking in German. He looked down at her with his blue eyes and she sensed a sudden charge in the air. 'Are you alright?' Hellstrom asked, his voice full of concern and worry.

'I'm fine, I think. I was just scared…'

'You were right to be. You weren't hurt? They didn't… they didn't touch you?'

'No,' she mumbled, ashamed again.

'If they had done, I would kill them.' His voice was full of a quiet intensity. Katerina didn't doubt his words. She stood, using the wall and Hellstrom's arm for support.

'Why are you out here at this time – and with so little clothing?' Hellstrom questioned, playing the role of protective older brother. He removed his coat and slipped it over her shoulders. She didn't object – the coat was warmed by his body and… it was _his._

Katerina had been infatuated with the Major ever since she had first met him, three years ago at a celebration party in Reims. She had been fifteen – young and malleable. He had charmed her with sweet talk and the offer of champagne – something that her father had forbidden. His smart uniform, sharp gaze and hidden cruelty appealed to her in ways she couldn't describe. He had let her grow tipsy, and they had kissed on the balcony overlooking the gardens of the château. He had not tried to contact her since, and she had tried to forget about their intimacy. But now, with him just an inch from her, the memories were resurfacing and clutching a hold of her.

'I don't know why they approached me, apart from… well, why would they want that anyway?' Encouraging Katerina to lean on his arm, Hellstrom laughed as they started walking back down the Rue Chápon. During her struggle with the SS soldiers, the snow had stopped falling – something she hadn't noticed.

'You are alone, at night, and, Katerina, you must know that you are beautiful!' Katerina avoided his gaze. He continued. 'Being the daughter of Henrik Friedmann, the soldiers have come to know about you. They are amazed by your beauty and elegance. I hear these things from all around, you know.' Blushing, she looked down and then back up into a powerful stare from her companion. 'And who could blame them?' Hellstrom whispered as he leant down to kiss her. She felt his lips on hers, gently prying. She opened herself to him; Hellstrom's arm slipped round her waist and pulled her closer. He deepened the kiss. And then it was over and Katerina was breathless.

'Come, let me show you something,' Hellstrom said, a gleam in his eye and a mischievous smile on his face.

They walked for ten minutes, their pace quick. They had entered a shabbier part of Paris, towards the north of the city. Trusting in her companion, she let Hellstrom lead her down a small alleyway. They stopped halfway. Katerina looked around. There was a door at the end, with a small sign that read 'Pas d'entrée,' and peeling paint on its frame. A wooden ladder ran up the side of the nearest building which was very rundown. There were no lights on in the windows.

Hellstrom kissed her again, this time his hand finding its way to her shoulder blades and then her neck. He broke off the embrace and ran his fingers through Katerina's hair. This proving a difficult task due to the amount of pins holding her hair in a bun, he removed them and she shook her hair. It waterfalled down her back.

'That's better.' This time, the kiss was stronger. Uneasy, Katerina pulled away.

'Major, I think I should go home,' she suggested, trying to remove her arm from his grip.

'No.' His voice was surprisingly harsh. Fear coursed through her veins. The change in his behaviour scared her to the core. But she managed to keep the shudder from her voice as she spoke.

'Let me go.'

'You don't understand yet, so I'll make it clear. You don't give orders. I do.' Awkwardly, making sure he had a grip on her arm at all times, Hellstrom pulled off his gloves. She shivered as he placed his cold fingers on her face. He traced her jaw line, forcing her head back until the pale white flesh of her throat was exposed. His tongue flicked over her skin and a tear rolled down her cheek.

Hellstrom pushed her down to the ground and removed his jacket. The brown shirt he wore had sweat stains under the arms.

'Say my name.'

'Please, please don't hurt me.' Katerina's voice quavered as she spoke. Hellstrom backhanded her across the face. She screamed.

'Say my _name_!' he yelled down at her.

'Dieter…' she sobbed.

'That's better.' He pulled at his belt-buckle, and leaned over her. 'Now, you're not going to shout, and you're not going to scream. If you do, I'll kill you.' Katerina found her strength, and spat in his face.

'Death is better than you!' she shouted, shuffling backwards, trying to push herself from the ground. Hellstrom laughed, and punched her in the face. Blood welled in her mouth, and pain blossomed over her chin. She spat again and again, trying to rid herself of the metallic taste. Just as she recovered, he punched her again, this time in the ribs.

He leapt on her, pinning her down, forcing her back onto the ground and thrusting his hand up her skirt. He wasted no time in pulling off her underwear, despite her protestations.

'No! Get off!' Katerina kicked and pushed, but Hellstrom was hard as rock against her and heavy. His hand plunged between her thighs and she felt his cold fingers inside her.

'Ahh, so you've had no little affairs with soldiers? I would have put you down as a whore!' He laughed again, and removed his hand. Pulling her legs wider, he ignored her moans and cries and thrust himself into her. Pain flashed in her belly as he rocked his body over hers. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she sobbed, helpless. Her arms were pinned down and her legs trapped underneath Hellstrom's. She felt disgusting, lying there with this man on top of her.

'Help!' Katerina choked, trying again to push Hellstrom off her. It was fruitless. She turned her face away from his heavy breath and dry kisses, focussing instead on the other side of the alleyway. Then a pair of boots came into view, brown, with laces up the front. The pain, so successfully numbing her senses, clouded too her mind. She was confused. Then something clicked into place in the back of her brain: person equals help. She screamed.

The weight of the Gestapo Major was pulled off her. Katerina felt light, free, as though she was floating. A horrific _thwack_ and a shriek of pain brought her back to the waking world. She pushed herself up and saw Major Hellstrom on the ground, his arms outstretched to try and stop the onslaught of blows that came from a giant bear-like man wielding what looked like a long club. The man on the ground flailed and screeched until, finally, he was still.

Then the bear man turned on her.

He dropped his bat – it fell to the floor with a thud. Took two steps towards her. He opened his mouth and spoke; distorted English.

Katerina let out a scream and hurled herself at the man, scratching and biting, fear fuelling her madness. The man hollered and batted her away with one soup-plate-sized hand. He reached out to her but she hissed and threw herself at him again. This time, however, he was ready for her; he picked her up and held her at arm's length. She squirmed and kicked, but the man was strong.

'Lassen Sie mich los, bastard!' she yelled, and sunk her teeth deep into the flesh of his forearm. The bear man swore and dropped her. Her head hit the floor hard. The ocean roared in her ears and the sky collapsed onto her. Blackness overcame her like a flood. The last thing she saw, through half-closed lids, was the bear man reaching out to her again, fear in his eyes.


	2. Time To Die

The thunderous fires faded away with the touch of a cold, cold hand. With a flash of pain the memory of cold fingers on scared skin returned, bringing with it more and more pain and a burning inside that seemed to rise and scream like some mythical beast that could not be vanquished. It ordered her body to wake but she would not let it; she held on to the dark promise of unconsciousness and death. But the beast would not be dissuaded and it forced open her mouth and poured down her throat like water and the only way to stop from choking was to open her eyes and so she gave in, surrendered; yielded to the cold hands and the beast inside her body.  
The first thing Katerina felt was a dull thudding in her head, an ache that filled her ears. Her brain seemed swollen. As she focussed herself, the pain sharpened and concentrated on a place just over and behind her right ear. She noticed wetness in her mouth and throat and realised that it was not the beast inside her body ordering her to drink, but one _outside._ As this thought occurred to her she felt fear take a paralytic hold over her: Dieter.

Katerina let loose a scream that was cut short – but not by her own doing. A hand was slammed over her mouth. It smelled of alcohol and mud. Clamping down with her teeth, she tasted blood. Dieter pulled away his hand with a cry of pain and anger. She pushed herself away and opened her eyes. A man stared down at her with anger in his grey eyes. It wasn't Dieter, but a larger, more stockier-built man with stubble, very short hair and a Nazi jacket. In one hand he held a roll of white bandage.

Suddenly two more men burst into the room through a door near the other end of the tiny room. One was short, with a high forehead and hair swept back in a small quiff. The other was taller, with short black hair and bloody fingers. They were both armed.

'It's fine,' the angry Nazi said in German-accented English. 'The bitch bit me.'

Katerina took advantage of the surprise and looked around cautiously. She was in a small room, dimly lit by a bulb that hung in the centre of the room. Its green shade was moulding slightly at the edges and had a thick layer of dust clinging to it. There was no furniture except for a small chest of drawers beside the door, on which rested a ceramic jug and washbowl, and a thin sleeping pallet on the floor – on which, Katerina realised, she had been laying.

The shorter man left, but the other stood in the doorway and eyed Katerina with a watchful gaze. Ignoring the pounding in her head, she looked him over. He was wearing a brown corduroy coat over a knitted brown fisherman's jumper. Under that, the collar of a blue shirt poked out. His eyes were deep brown, shadowed by long eyelashes.

'Glaubst du, sie spricht deutsch?' he asked of the angry man, who had put down the bandages on the bed and was inspecting the bite on his hand. His accent was Austrian.

'Ja, iches bin Deutche,' Katerina said, before she had time to stop herself. She clamped her hands over her mouth but it was too late. The angry man looked at her sharply.

'So what are you doing in France?' he questioned in German, his voice clipped.

'I could ask of you the same thing,' Katerina replied, sounding braver than she felt. The Austrian man by the door laughed and leant on the frame. The angry man scowled.

'She seems to have got you there, my friend,' said the taller man. Then he turned to her and his smile faltered. 'What are you doing in France?' Katerina didn't reply. Her legs started shaking. The angry man grinned and drew a knife from its holder at his hip. He took a step towards her – it counted for more in the small space – but was stopped when the Austrian stood and spoke again, in English, a warning tone in his voice.

'Stiglitz, stop right now.' The man named Stiglitz frowned and returned his knife. It made a satisfying _shiik _sound as the metal slid against the leather.

_They don't know I can speak English, _thought Katerina, who had understood every word the Austrian had said.

'I don't think Donny'd be too happy if he knew you'd killed his girl,' he continued, still speaking English.

'Entschuldigen,' Katerina interjected, acting as though she hadn't been offended at the words '_his girl._' 'Can I go home?'

'I don't know,' the Austrian replied. He ducked out of the door. Silence ensued. Stiglitz returned to inspecting his hand. Flexing his thumb, he flinched at the pain.

'Sorry.' His head flicked up, eyes surprised. He saw Katerina's remorseful stare and waved his hand to accept the apology.

Katerina put a hand to her head, trying to sooth the dull ache of pain. Her fingers came away sticky with blood. She looked in shock at the red in her palm. 'Did you do this?' she asked accusatorially of Stiglitz.

'You don't remember?'

'Why, what happened?' Stiglitz eyed her with an unbelieving gaze that turned to embarrassment for a fraction of a second.

'One of us found you being… Being raped by a Nazi. He killed the bastard but then you attacked him. During the struggle you hit your head.'

As Stiglitz spoke, Katrina felt the memories rushing back. She remembered Dieter saving her from the Nazi Hauptsturmführer only to have her trust betrayed when he turned on her and… and… She bit back a sob, turning away from Stiglitz and falling to her knees. She pressed her palms into her eyes, rubbing them hard as if she could erase the memories. But instead her fragile mind replayed them over and over again in front of her – she relived every moment and the pain hit anew. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she struggled to breath. Her body racked with sobs and she bit her knuckles to stop from crying out. The taste of blood in her mouth and the flash of pain in her index finger sobered her a little, and she felt suddenly foolish for crying in front of this man who had probably killed hundreds of people. But she couldn't stop the tears.

Suddenly a hand was placed on Katerina's shoulder. Not caring who was behind her, wanting only to be held, she turned into an embrace. Warm arms encircled her body and she crushed herself into the man's torso, shaking with more unshed tears. She had been so strong for so long, caring for Bruno, ignoring her own sadness. Suddenly it all came out, and she wept into the man's chest.

After a while, after her tears were spent, Katerina pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. A blush rose to her cheeks as she looked up and saw three men standing around her, gazing at her with expressions of concern and discomfort.

'Entschuldigen,' she whispered, turning from them. She placed a hand over her chest, trying to calm her furiously beating heart.

'What do we do now?' The voice was American. Again, Katerina pretended not to understand, instead running her fingers through her long blonde hair and sniffling quietly.

'What can we do? Send her home? In this state? Look at her!' someone else replied. The accent was similar, but the voice was deeper, rougher. She looked down at herself, noting the rips in her dress, and the dirt and blood stains.

She turned to the men, memorising their features. One was tall and large, with a massive torso and thick, muscled arms. It was the bear man! His eyes were dark brown, like his hair, which was nearly black. The next man wore a hat of dark blue cloth, and a thin scarf tied round his throat of the same colour. His eyes were light blue, framed by long lashes. He had a clipped moustache on his upper lip and three days' worth of stubble over his jaw, which was strong and sharp. His hair was shorter at the sides than on the top; the longer hair was flicked to one side, and fell over his forehead a little. Then there was Stiglitz. He stared, not with concern, but with interest.

'So, you are German,' he stated in their language, ignoring his companions' bored sighs.

'Talk in a language we can all fucking understand,' the bear muttered.

'She doesn't speak English, fool,' replied Stiglitz slowly, as if he were talking to a dumb child. 'They don't understand,' he continued in German. 'You can speak.'

'They don't know what I say?' Katerina asked. 'Then tell them I want to go home. Now.' Stiglitz relayed her request, acting as translator between them all.

'Not happenin', I'm afraid, girl. You know where we're at now. There's no tellin' who you'll inform of our hideout,' said the shorter man with the moustache.

'I'm a prisoner?' Katerina asked. In her mind she was piecing together remembered shards of information and memories, trying to find something to bargain with.

'Of a sort.'

'Then I want something to eat. And I want to know your names,' she said sharply, her fear dissipating. Stiglitz repeated her words, and after three seconds of raised eyebrows and curious glances, the bear man reached out his hand and said,

'Donny.' Stiglitz turned to Katerina.

'He's the one who found you last night, and who killed the Gestapo Major. Remember?' Katerina nodded, and looked back to the bear. He was very handsome. Something about his size and frightening stance appealed to her. There were scratches on his face and a bite mark on his left forearm. She realised, with a blush, that she had caused these marks.

'Can you tell him I'm sorry about last night?' she asked timidly of Stiglitz. When the German informed the bear of her words, he nodded and left the room.

'My name is Lieutenant Aldo Raine,' the moustached man said. Katerina gasped. Then she stepped forwards and pulled his scarf down. A purple scar ringed his neck.

'Aldo Raine? You are The Basterds?' Realising just how much trouble she was in, her fear returned. 'I want to leave, I want to leave. Let me out. Let me out!' She shouted, pushing past Stiglitz and Raine and running through the door. The room she came into was larger, equally as dimly lit and full of men. Her eyes found the exit, which she ran to and kicked open. Half-falling down the stairs, Katerina ran faster as she heard heavy boots behind her. Another door came into view. She hurled herself at it and squeezed through the narrow gap.

It was cold outside, and bright. She didn't recognise where she was. The door behind her had a small sign beside it, and there was a ladder running up the side of the building opposite her. Then she saw the bloodstains and brain matter on the ground and realised that this was where she had been last night. Wasting precious seconds fending off the painful memories, Katerina shut her eyes and slammed her fist into the wall. Then she heard a body hit the door she had come out of, and she was running before she knew what was happening.

* * *

The house was quiet. Katerina was too exhausted to bother going round to the back door so she risked it and lifted the big brass knocker on the front door. Madeleine answered it. Her face fell and she gazed in horror at Katerina's torn dress, bloody, bruised face and dirty hair.

'Miss Katerina, whatever has happened to you?' Katerina pushed past her, into the black-and-white tiled hallway, ignoring her questions.

'Tell my stepmother or father about this and I'll have you fired, understand?' she said, for the first time using her power over the maid. Madeleine looked shocked. Katerina softened. 'I'm sorry, Madeleine, but they can't know. Can you forgive my harshness?'

'Of course, Miss Katerina. I shall draw you a bath.' She hurried off, up the stairs. Katerina inhaled sharply. Her body wanted to shut down and recuperate, but she knew she was stronger than that. She had her mother's blood in her veins, and she would not be disheartened simply by The Basterds. Eyeing the clock, she saw it was just after eleven. She had been missing for thirteen hours.

Stripping off her clothes in the pale-coloured bathroom, Katerina inspected her body in the mirror. She expected to look different, now that womanhood had been forced upon her. But there was nothing to distinguish this body from her old one. She had small breasts, slender hips, thin legs and tiny wrists. Her proportions were willowy, much like her mothers – she would be taller, but she would stay slim. Her belly was smooth, and it stuck out a little, like an inverted bowl. She stepped closer to the mirror, scrutinising her face. It was heart-shaped, framed with long, thin, blonde hair. She had soft cheekbones and a strong jaw that looked a little out of place because of her delicate features. Her dark brown eyes, set in shadowy sockets, were stunning and bright, and her mouth was full and bowed.  
Katerina gently fingered a bruise that was appearing under one eye, where Hellstrom had hit her. Picking at the dried blood around her nose and mouth, she noted the other bruises on her body: her inner thighs, her upper arms, a few on her stomach, and one just under her left breast.

An ache started around her hips, and she felt suddenly dirty. She climbed into the tub full of scalding hot water and scrubbed at her flesh until it was pink and tender. Rinsing away all of Hellstrom's dirty fingerprints gave Katerina some sense of relief. Lying back in the tub, she gazed at her hands. The knuckles of her left hand were bloodied from where she had punched the wall, and there was a crescent moon-shaped cut on her right index finger, one made by her own teeth.

She dried herself with a towel, and drained the bloodied, dirty water from the tub. Wrapping herself in the towel she went into her own room and found clothes: a long-sleeved, pale blouse and a high-waisted brown skirt made from a light brown, pleated, silky material. Katerina also put thick woollen tights on and a pair of soft-leather Victorian boots, which had to be done up with a button hook. After making sure her clothes looked presentable, she picked up the dirty dress and slip she had worn the day before and carried them to her stepmother and father's room. There, she sat down at her stepmother's dressing table and searched through her drawers for some makeup. She disguised the bruise under her eye with half a tonne of powder and, after a short deliberation, also put darker shadow onto her eyelids and rubbed a small amount of lipstick onto her lips. She stared at herself in the mirror; she was almost unrecognisable.

Pulling at her hair, she separated off a section at the front and twisted the rest into a bun. Smoothing the front section, she swept it over her right ear and pinned it there. Katerina looked again in the mirror and she felt tears come to her eyes; she looked just like her mother.

As she exited her stepmother's room, Katerina heard the front door open and shut, and then voices in the hall below. Wanting to avoid her family, Katerina went to the back of the house and climbed down the familiar servants' staircase, which was made of uncarpeted wood. It came out in a small passageway beside the kitchens. Katerina, having been in these passageways many times, walked swiftly to the end and opened the door to the laundry room. Luckily, Madeleine was inside.

'Can you please burn these for me?' Katerina asked of her, handing over the dirtied clothes from the night before.

'Of course, Miss. There's a man waiting for you upstairs, in the living room. Ada wasn't sure she should let him in – he wouldn't tell her his name.' Madeleine left, bundling the dress up and putting it under her arm. Katerina wondered who the man could be. _Probably one of Father's Nazi friends, _she thought to herself. Sighing, she walked past the entrance to the kitchen, ignoring the luscious smells of freshly baked bread, and climbed the other servants' staircase to the hallway. There was silence in the house.  
The living room door was heavy; Katerina pushed it open and entered. A man stood next to the bookshelf with his back to her.

'Excuse-moi monsieur?' she asked. The man turned around. His grey eyes cut through her like the knife that hung on his belt. Stiglitz. 'What are you doing here? Did you follow me?' her tongue lapsed into German.

'Of course. What was I supposed to do, let you disappear? You would've told your Nazi father about us and then we'd all be dead.'

'How do you know about my father?' she asked curtly, but stopped when she saw the framed picture of Henrik, in all his uniformed glory, that stood on the sideboard.

'So you're Katerina Friedmann. I heard a lot about you when I was in the army.' The army? Stiglitz… she cast through her memories, trying to place the name and face. Stiglitz smirked as she pieced together his history.

'Ah, Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz. The defective Nazi turned maniacal murderer. What exactly did you hope to accomplish by killing a dozen Gestapo?' Katerina said spitefully.

'Well obviously, I would have killed more had I not been captured,' Stiglitz retorted. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to her. It had been folded and refolded many times, by the look of it. There was a bloodstain in one corner. She unfolded it and gazed down at a list of names written in pencil. There were thirty-five names, nineteen of which had been crossed out. A few she recognised from her father's anecdotes and parties, but most she didn't know. The ones she was unsure of were mostly Hauptsturmführers and other smaller ranks; those lower down in the military hierarchy. She guessed they were personal vendettas. Her father's name was on the list. So was Hellstrom's.

'He's dead, now,' Katerina whispered, pointing at his name.

'So he is. But not by my hand. Shame.' Katerina ignored his sarcasm, casting around for something to say. But suddenly Stiglitz reached out his hand and brushed his fingertip over the skin beneath her eye. 'You covered it up well,' he said in English. Katerina tried to look confused, keeping up her I-don't-speak-English pretence, but the look of Stiglitz's face showed that he didn't believe her, not for one second.

'How did you know?' she asked, speaking English.

'I'm good at watching people. The look on your face when Wicki said that thing about you being Donny's girl; you were furious.' He hadn't removed his hand from her face.

'Well I'm not his girl!' Katerina switched back to German. 'Why are you here?' she asked again. Stiglitz retracted his hand as if burned and frowned.

'I wanted to ask you not to tell your father about us.'

'But you didn't know he was my father until you got here! You're lying.'

'No, I'm not. The bastard Hellstrom wouldn't have picked up any old girl on the street. You would've had to have some sort of connection to a Nazi, the most likely of which, due to your age, would be father. So I _did _come to ask you not to tell your father. I just didn't know who your father was.' He smiled, secure in the knowledge he had beaten her.

'I want you to leave, please,' she asked swiftly. 'My _father _will be home soon. I don't think today is his time to die.' Stiglitz smiled and nodded and crossed to the door.

'By the way,' he said softly in English, 'I don't think you're Donny's girl either.' Then he was gone.


	3. A Graveyard In Cottbus

Katerina met her stepmother and brother in the Café du Eiffel at one o'clock. It had been an hour since Stiglitz had touched her cheek, and yet the buzzing in her skin still had not abated. The only thing that occupied her mind was a yearning for him to touch her again. She thought that, after last night, she would despise any touch that a man could give, but it was quite the opposite.

Marie was smoking her cigarette and reading a French book. Bruno sat in silence, eating cake and making his spoon and fork dance together on the table. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt with a knitted blue v-necked jumper over it. He looked like their father, except with dark hair. He jumped up when Katerina came to their table, smiling.

'Bonjour! Ça va?' she asked, kissing him on the top of his head. Marie looked up from her book.

'I was wondering when you'd come,' she said disdainfully in French. Katerina ignored her, instead taking a bite of Bruno's cake and wiping chocolate from his chin.

'How are you, Marie? I trust you had fun shopping?' she asked politely. There was no love lost between the two women – Katerina had hated her father's new wife from the moment she stepped over their threshold, and the feeling was mutual, it seemed. She believed that her father was replacing her dead mother with a younger, blonder version. And Marie thought that Katerina was a spoilt, selfish girl who thought only of others when it pleased her.

'Oui!' said Bruno happily. 'We went to Madame Grés and Mama brought a dress to wear to Father's promotion party. Mama, show her!'

'Later, Bruno. Where were you this morning, Katerina?' Marie stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and took a sip of wine from the glass beside her book.

'I was asleep. Did my absence upset Father?' she asked innocently. Marie narrowed her eyes and switched to English so Bruno wouldn't understand.

'One of Henrik's colleagues was murdered last night. I believe you knew him. Gestapo Major Hellstrom?' Katerina's heart sank and a flash of fear coursed in her veins at the mention of _him._ She thought that it would be days before Hellstrom was found; the Basterds surely knew how to hide a body? She managed to keep a straight face, however, and her voice miraculously stayed level.

'And Father thought I had something to do with his death, did he? Or is it merely your idea planted in his mind?' she accused. Marie glared at her across the table and Katerina returned the angry stare, but then her stepmother's face seemed to collapse inwards.

'I don't know why you would say such a thing. I am in no mood to fight. Please, Katerina, can we resume this at home?'

'No, I think I will stay out a little longer. Bruno,' she said, returning to French, 'how would you like to go and visit Pierre?' Even as Marie started to protest, Bruno leapt form his seat, shouting, 'Hurrah! Let's see Pierre!'

Pierre was a stuffed wolf in Le Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Bruno had seen him for the first time on a school trip a week before the summer holiday. During the holiday, he had visited Pierre almost every single day. 'Obsessed' was a kind word to describe Bruno's relationship to the dead animal.

Katerina grabbed his hand and lifted him up. Marie rubbed her eyes and placed her fingers on her temples. It was then that Katerina saw how pale and ill her stepmother looked.

'Why don't you go wait outside?' she said to Bruno. Taking her stepmother's hand in hers, she sat down again as her brother ran for the exit. 'Marie, what is wrong?'

Marie took a deep breath and shuddered.

'I am pregnant again,' she whispered.

'Does my father know?' Katerina asked softly.

'I have not yet told him. I fear there is something wrong, this time. My body is not reacting like it should – I fear for my life - and the child's.' Katerina took in this information and allowed her body to digest it. Then she snapped into the mindset of a strong young woman.

'I will call you a cab and you can go straight home with your new clothes. Once you are there, get Madeleine to draw you a bath and then go to bed. Do you understand me? Now, what have you eaten today?' Marie gave her a guilty look. 'Well starving yourself will be no help for your baby, will it? When you get home, promise me you'll eat something?'

After Katerina and Bruno waved Marie off, she took his hand and they ran together across the green in front of the Eiffel Tower. There were many children playing there, watched by doting mothers in slacks and sweaters. The weather, poised on the border between autumn and winter, was behaving very oddly. Warm, bright and sunny during the day, then dropping to minus temperatures during the night. However, the people of Paris were taking advantage of the spring-weather days; they were not likely to frown upon their good fortune.

Bruno pulled her onto the tram and they sat together on the varnished wooden bench just behind the barrier. It marked the start of the seats that were reserved for Nazi soldiers. There were three grey-uniformed men in the compartment, two of which had their backs to Katerina and her brother. The man facing her had short white-blond hair, and sparkling blue eyes. He wore the uniform of a Sturmführer, and was young to have achieved this station. He was the epitome of Hitler's Aryan race. As Katerina sat down and cast her eyes over the soldiers, he smiled and winked at her. She looked away.

They got off outside the Muséum national d'Histoire Naturelle, a ten-minute tram journey from the Eiffel Tower. The Sturmführer followed them off the tram. Katerina ignored him as they climbed the steps to the Muséum, but when they reached the top he touched her arm and she was forced to turn around.

'Oui?' she asked. The soldier clicked his heels.

'Bonjour. Obersturmführer-SS Mayer Gottlieb at your service.'

'Very nice to meet you. Au revoir,' Katerina said sharply. Mayer looked a little shocked at this rebuttal, but he smiled all the same.

Suddenly, Bruno pulled on her hand, whining.

'Are we going to see Pierre or not? You promised, Katerina!' She knelt down beside him and put her finger on his lips.

'Shh. Go in on your own. I'll catch up with you, okay?' Bruno nodded and rushed off. She turned back to the soldier. 'Was there something you needed, Obersturmführer Gottlieb?'

'Are you Katerina Friedmann? Gruppenführer Henrik Friedmann's daughter?' he had lapsed into German.

'Ja, und…?'

'It would be my honour to accompany you, if you don't object.' Katerina sighed. The man was very handsome, and clearly very good at his job, but she was not attracted to him in the least. He was one of the men that her father might try to set her up with: good looking, loquacious, ambitious… But he was very persistent.

'I'm taking my brother to see Pierre. Would you like to come along?' She started up the steps without bothering to wait for an answer.

'Who is Pierre?' asked Mayer, matching his stride to hers.

'A stuffed wolf,' Katerina replied as they entered the Muséum. 'This way.'

Bruno was waiting for them outside the wild animal display. In his excitement, his hair had flipped over his forehead and his eyes were shining bright.

'Come on, look, I can see him!' Katerina laughed and followed her brother into the exhibit, weaving through the mix of French and German children amassed in the circular room. Bruno shrieked when he reached Pierre. Inspired by her brother's infectious happiness, she turned to Mayer and grinned. He smiled back, his eyes sparkling.

* * *

It was around three o'clock when they returned to the house. Katerina took her brother upstairs to sleep; he was exhausted from their day out and needed rest if he was to attend their father's party that evening. Preparations were underway, turning Katerina's home from a cold, functional house to a colourful, lively venue.

As she walked through the house, she took in the various changes that had been made. The table had been removed from the dining room to make a larger space that fed into the high-ceilinged hallway. There were small lanterns hanging from the ceiling in both rooms. A warm smell of alcohol and chocolate seeped up the stairs from the kitchens; Katerina felt heady after being in the house for only five minutes.

The living room seemed to be out of bounds to the guests. No changes had been made - Katerina assumed it was because no-one would be going in. She had no idea how many people were going to come to her father's promotion party, and no idea how many she knew. Most of them would be Nazis, she presumed, seeing as her father was one.

She snorted disdainfully. She hated the Nazis. Hated all that they stood for, all that they did, all that they were. She admired Hugo and all the Basterds for what they did. They gave hope to all those who were suppressed: hope that a change could soon be coming.

The sound of the front door opening brought Katerina out of her reverie. She went back through to the entrance hall, rubbing her fingers over her stinging eyes. Her head ached - a side effect of Hellstrom's violence - and she just wished to be asleep. Her father stood in the hall, dressed in his grey uniform with his hat under his arm.

'Hallo Papa,' Katerina said, kissing him on the cheek. He acknowledged the affection with a nod of his head. He looked troubled - a frown adorned his brow and there were shadows beneath his eyes. 'Is something the matter, Papa?'

'Nothing for you to be concerned about,' Henrik replied curtly, his frown melting instantly. He pushed past her, striding towards the servant's staircase. Upset, but not surprised, at the rebuttal, Katerina felt anger rising unwanted in her chest.

As he reached the stair, Henrik turned round. 'Where's your mother?' he asked.

'Under the ground in a graveyard in Cottbus!' Katerina retorted angrily.

'Don't be a child!' Henrik shouted. 'Where is your mother?'

'Marie is not my mother! She never will be. You don't love her. You can't! You loved my mother, you loved her!' She stopped short. Henrik's face was flat, emotionless. 'I hate her and I hate it here. I hate you,' Katerina whispered. She spun on her heel and wrenched open the front door. The rage choked her, filled her with hatred. Sour, bitter loneliness pooled in her mouth; she could taste it on her tongue. Quenching her resentment to stop from screaming, she sprinted down the steps and fled across the street.

Katerina went to the café on the Rue de Mémoire and sat in the window looking out on the market. There was a film poster leant up against the bare brick wall on the opposite side of the market. It promoted Bridget von Hammersmark's latest feature, _Der Schmerz Bitterer Tränen. _Staring at the poster, Katerina barely noticed as a cup of coffee was slid onto her table. She mumbled a 'Merci,' but the waiter had already gone. She let her eyes wander over the big red Swastika flag that hung from the window of a block of flats towards the northeast corner of the market, and on to a young boy riding his bike through the square. He looked young, about twelve. Katerina thought of Bruno. How could she love so dearly the offspring of the two people she hated the most?

Sipping the coffee and reveling in the rich, deep feeling of warmth that spread from her mouth to her toes, she thought about her actions. She needed to keep her temper in check. There had been too many outbursts and they were making her reckless. The fragmented memories of the previous night - was it really only one day ago? - snapped in her mind. Stiglitz's face, and Donny's too, appeared in the murkiness. Blood coated her hands, dripping onto the varnished surface of the table in front of her.

She summoned her wits, and dispelled the visions from her mind. It had started to rain lightly outside, a sudden contrast to the ridiculously bright sunshine that had reigned over the sky just a few hours previously. Dropping a few francs onto the table and shivering gently, Katerina went through to the bar area of the café. It was full of grey- and black-uniformed men. She recognized a few from her father's work.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain digging into her back. She turned quickly, terrified. A few suspicious glances were thrown her way as she uttered a soft squeak of fear. Stiglitz's cold eyes gazed intently into hers, inches above her face. The knife was suddenly in its holster at his hip. He wore the uniform of a Sturmführer. His hand gripped her wrist like a clamp.

'Lass mich los' she whispered, realizing that people were paying more attention to them than was necessary.

'Pretend you're glad to see me,' Hugo muttered, his eyes flicking over her shoulder. 'Do anything - kiss me!'

'No.' She shook him off. There was a click of boots on wooden floor behind her.

'Now!' he hissed. She knew that she, too, would be in danger if anyone recognized him, but couldn't bring herself to touch him. 'Kiss me!' He took her face in his hands, bent his head… then his lips met hers. His mouth moved over hers, and her body responded despite her fear. She curled her arms round his neck and pulled him to her. The kiss softened and they broke apart. Uncontent with this, Hugo frowned and kissed her again, his tongue gently caressing her lower lip.

Katerina felt like she were underwater, in a dream, in space, anywhere but where she stood. It couldn't be real. The pleasure she felt - after all the pain she suffered from Hellstrom's hands - seemed unbearable. How could one man do this? It was not possible…

'Fräulein Friedmann?' a smooth voice asked behind her. Katerina pulled herself from Hugo's embrace - against her will and better judgment - and turned to face a very tall man in black Sturmbannführer Gestapo uniform. His name was Axel Dietrich, a friend of Katerina's father.

'Guten Abend, Sturmbannführer. Wie gehts?' She smiled up at him innocently, knowing that if he even suspected Hugo, both of them would be in German cells within the hour.

Axel's hair - thick, blond and curly - hung around his face. It was clear he was not working - had he been, his hair would be combed back under his hat. He had dark brown eyes and slightly darker skin than those around him. He was a devoted servant of Hitler's dictatorship, but held no pride in the unprovoked, only-for-pleasure torment of those Hitler regarded as 'undesirable.' If he had been ordered to, Katerina had no doubt that Axel would kill his own mother. But outside of the military heirachy, the tall, kind man was simply normal, sensitive, and good-humoured. However, in this moment, he looked positively embarrassed. Katerina tucked her arm into Stiglitz's and stared at the Sturmbannführer expectantly. He coughed.

'Does your… does your father know you're here?' Axel asked, trying to hide his awkwardness over witnessing her and Stiglitz's act of passion.

'He knows I am out of the house, yes, but not my company,' she replied. Taking a step towards him, she lowered her voice and whispered conspiratorially, 'I expect he has no notion of what I do outside his home. Shall we keep it to ourselves?'

'Fräulein, as my superior, if your father were to ask me, I could not lie.' Katerina smiled and winked at him, holding herself together.

'Then let us hope he does not ask.' She reached up and kissed his cheek. 'Au revoir!'

Dragging Hugo behind her, she near ran round the corner into the alley behind the café. Once there, she pushed herself away from him and bent over, hyperventilating.

'Do you know what could have happened to us?' she gasped, gazing at him through wide eyes. 'Imagine if you had been recognized! We _both _would have been tortured or killed! What were you _thinking?'_

'The Lieutenant needs to see you -' Hugo began, but Katerina cut him off with a cry of anger.

'I am not some dog to be ordered around! Yes, one of you quite possibly saved my life. I thank you for that. But I did not ask to be saved, and I sure as Hell didn't enter into any bargain in which I could be commandeered like some car by the roadside!' Hugo looked a little stunned.

'You kissed me back,' he said quickly. The change of topic surprised Katerina. She snorted disdainfully.

'What else was I supposed to do? Cry for help? Don't be stupid,' she retorted. 'Axel would have killed you and then I would be… I would be…' Her fury petered out. _I would be alone, _she had wanted to say. 'And,' she continued, 'you had a knife sticking in my back. Couldn't you have just waited until I came out and then asked me?'

'Yes, maybe I could have,' Hugo admitted, his lips twitching a little. 'But it was fun, was it not?' Not ready to smile quite yet, Katerina sighed and straightened her back.

'What is it that Aldo the Apache wants with me?'


	4. I Wasn't Made For Killing

_Okay, hey everyone! Thank-you for all your reviews, story alerts, etcetera - it makes me so happy to know that you like my writing! The last chapter was not so great, it was a bit of a fill-in chapter, but it led to this one - and this one is EXCITING! So I hope you enjoy it, and please keep reviewing! _

* * *

They were back outside her home, standing by the steps in the gathering dark. The temperature was cooling; the rain had ceased but the air was still heavy with moisture. Hugo's hand was on Katerina's arm. She could feel the warmth in his fingers. She regretted the way she had reacted when Hugo had told her about what Aldo wanted. But she could justify her actions. Aldo wanted her to spy on her father, on the Nazi High Command! She could not do that. They were her people, her family. It didn't matter what they did, who they murdered. They were a part of her and she could not betray them. She refused even to see Aldo again, let alone part with information that could compromise her father's life!

'You know they already found the body, didn't you?' Hugo asked her as he led her up the stairs.

'Yes, I know,' Katerina replied curtly. She would rather talk about something else - anything else.

'We left it outside the Gestapo headquarters in the centre of Paris. Donny's idea.' Hugo smirked at the memory, and then looked down at her. In his eyes, she could see that he wanted to kiss her again. He put a hand on her cheek, under her damp hair.

'Ich kann nicht. Verzeih Sie mir, bitte?' Katerina whispered. Hugo removed his hand from Katerina's cheek, as if burned. His eyes turned to flint. 'Hugo?' she asked, worried.

'Go inside. I will see you soon.' His voice was clipped, and harsh. He turned on his heel and descended the stairs.

'Hugo!' she called. He ignored her. She watched as he crossed the road and vanished into the dark. Sighing, she turned away and knocked on her front door.

* * *

The house was alive, filled with noise and light. The trials and arguments Katerina's day had held seemed forgotten, and she felt happy, and content. She was back where she should be; at her father's arm, amidst a sea of grey-clad believers in the Third Reich. All thoughts of The Basterds - and of Hugo's kiss - were banished from her mind.

She smiled at her stepmother - back on her feet and looking beautiful in her new Madame Grés dress - and kissed her father on the cheek. Over the babble of the voices around her, Katerina heard her father request of her another drink. He was drinking whiskey, and had just finished a glass. She took the empty tumbler from his large hand and crossed the dining room to the hallway.

Her father drank a special whiskey, imported from Ireland. He ordered it in bulk - he drank about half a crate of twelve bottles every year. But after the war started, he had been unable to get it shipped from Ireland, and his stock was running very low.

Too expensive to be kept in the cupboard in the front room where all the other drinks were stored, Henrik Friedmann stowed his 1930 Dunville's Three Crowns whiskey in the kitchen, where the cook, Monsieur Dubois, kept a keen and watchful eye over it. Unbeknownst to the other members of his family, there was a secondary bottle in the third draw down in Henrik's desk, which he used only in 'emergencies.'

Katerina descended the steps to the kitchen. Her fingers brushed the wall. It was cold. The basement floor of the house was silent, and chilly. The servants, dismissed for the night, were absent from the kitchen. Katerina knew not where they were, nor what they were doing. But those thoughts didn't even cross her mind and she pushed open the door to the kitchen and entered the dark room. Fumbling for the light switch with her right hand, her father''s empty tumbler in her left, she tried to suppress the sudden feeling she had that there was someone in the room.

Her fingers finally found the switch and the six lights that hung from the ceiling flickered into life. Quenching her fears, Katerina swept her eyes over everything in the room, making sure there was in fact no other person there. It was completely empty. She knew it was stupid, but she had a right to be afraid of the dark. It was justifiable - rational, even. A flash of cold fingers and hot breath on her face was enough to make Katerina check over her shoulder to make sure Dieter was not there, ready to attack her again.

Dismissing her fears, but keeping herself on guard, Katerina crossed through the kitchen, aiming straight for a cupboard nailed to the wall at just above head height. She pulled the door open and reached inside, her fingers closing around cool glass. The bottle was of a nice shape - pleasing to the eye and the touch. She could hold the wider part of the bottle in her palm and her fingers and thumb would stretch perhaps halfway around it. Setting her father's tumbler down next to the AGA stove, Katerina slipped the cork out from the bottle neck - it made a satisfactory pop sound - and poured the warm amber liquid into the glass. As she put the cork back into the bottle and turned to replace it in the cupboard, someone stood up from behind the cabinets in the centre of the kitchen and spoke. Katerina screamed and dropped the bottle. The intruder cried out and lunged forwards, but was too late: the bottle smashed on the brick floor; glass fragments seemed to explode from the ground, and whiskey droplets spattered everywhere.

'Verdammte Hölle!' Katerina yelled. Then her eyes focussed, and she realized who was standing in her kitchen. 'Donny, was machst du hier?' Donny rolled his eyes at the use of her native language.

'I'm sorry, I don't speak filth.' He spat the last word, injecting as much hatred into it as he could. 'Oh, and don't try any of your I-don't-speak-English crap with me, Katy, 'cause Stiglitz told us 'bout that already.'

'Excuse me?' Katerina asked, stunned. She stepped over the mess of glass and whiskey on the floor, and thrust her face as close to Donny's as she could manage. 'Did you just call me 'Katy'?' She spoke quietly, but hissed the last word. Realizing his mistake, the American shrugged and rubbed his temple with his fingers.

'Well, y'know… 'Katerina' - it's such a mouthful, yeah? I just figured, shortening it… might be a good idea?' his voice trailed off in the face of her incandescent rage.

'If you ever call me that again, ever, I will kill you. Do we understand each other?'

'Yeah, I s'pose…' Donny avoided meeting her gaze, instead glancing around the kitchen and then focussing on the remains of the Dunville's bottle. 'Anyways… do you think anyone heard?'

'No. There is music, and we are quite far beneath the other rooms,' Katerina explained.

She bent over the glass, collecting the larger shards in her palm. The pieces were cold in her hands, and wet. They clicked against each other gently as she carried them to the window, cracked it open, and tipped the fragments out. Donny copied her, his hands able to carry much more than hers. Soon there was just a puddle of strong-smelling whiskey on the floor; Donny grabbed a cloth from the shelf and laid it over the liquid. It soon seeped through to the other side, however, so he placed another over the top.

Her heart only just beginning to slow down from the fright she had had, Katerina climbed onto the sideboard beside the AGA stove, sat down there, and sipped her father's whiskey from the glass she was supposed to refill. It was strong, and scorched her nose, mouth and throat with a fiery burn. Coughing, she set the glass down again. She reached up and unpinned her hair from where it had been intricately curled and styled by Madeleine. The glossy golden waves tumbled over her shoulders and she ran her fingers through it.

Katerina looked up at Donny: his dark, messy hair fell over his brow like Bruno's often did; the deep brown eyes beneath seemed to glisten in the soft light; and a perpetual smirk adorned his lips. He towered over her - six feet tall to her five foot three. She couldn't help but feel anger as she looked at him. But also, unbidden, another feeling bubbled to the top of her: desire.

'What ya looking at?' He hopped up onto the table opposite her, letting his booted feet fall just shy of the floor. When she didn't answer, Donny nudged her gently with his toe. She still didn't reciprocate. 'Katy?'

'I asked you not to call me that,' she snapped.

'Well you weren't exactly talking, so I had to say something, didn't I?' Suddenly Katerina jumped down from the sideboard and started talking.

'My life was fine until you came along! I was happy here, with my father and Bruno and Marie. But you went and killed Dieter and I wish you had not! He might have killed me and then I would not have to remember what he did to me every minute of every day! I just want you to leave me alone, and never come back!' she sobbed, letting loose a cry of frustration and anger.

'Katy,' Donny said, slipping off the table and catching her arms. 'Calm down. Calm down.' She hit his chest hard with her fists, trying to conceal and subdue her cries. She gradually weakened, and then fell into his embrace, sobbing heavily onto his shoulder. The American giant tenderly wrapped his arms around her and held her softly as she wept.

Had anyone been watching, they would have been astonished that so ursine a man could be capable of such gentle warmth and compassion. Tentatively, Donny stroked her hair. It was like velvet; silky to the touch. He twined a lock of her hair around his finger and then tucked it behind her ear. He could not help himself but delight in the feeling she invoked in him: a warmth in his belly, like fireflies clustered around a candle, an excitement; pure pleasure.

It took Katerina a few minutes to calm down sufficiently to cease her tears. However, she stayed in Donny's embrace, hearing his heavy breathing, feeling his chest move beneath her and inhaling his smell. Oilcloth and cigarettes, and whiskey. He smelt of everything in the world that she had been forbidden; he smelt like freedom. She pulled away from him, finally, and looked at his feet, embarrassed to the bottom of her heart. Trembling, Donny reached out and pushed her hair back from her face. Katerina looked into his deep drown eyes, and blinked against the intensity of his stare.

'Katy, you are so beautiful,' he murmured. She was shocked, not just because of what he had said, but because it was the sincerest thing she had ever heard. The unbidden feeling of desire that had grown so restlessly in her stomach suddenly bubbled up and over the edges, filling her every inch with lust.

The kiss that he planted on her lips was not as electrifying as Hugo's had been, but it was all the more heartfelt. She tasted it on his tongue: he wanted every part of her. Hugo's kiss had been so much less passionate - it was like eating coal when you could have cake. Donny's arms pulled her closer and his tongue explored her mouth and lips lovingly; with kindness and sensitivity.

Katerina disentangled her arms from under his and threw one around his neck, kissing him back with a fervor. They broke apart and Donny held her close. She pressed her face into his neck, unable to contain her grin.

'Fucking hell,' he whispered into her hair.

'Come upstairs,' she invited breathlessly, grasping his hand and pulling him towards the servants' stair. He went readily, mesmerized by her beauty and apparent willingness to bed him.

Donny was not a harsh man, despite the number of deaths he had caused, by his own hand or no. He did not revel in the pain of others, unlike Stiglitz. He did not wish to hurt the girl - and she was just a girl, a child, almost - who's fingers were intwined so gracefully with his own. However, the months he had spent without female contact were growing, now well into double figures. It was not inhumane to want to feel alive again, and even if his common sense was telling him that it was wrong to screw Katy, not fully understanding how he felt about her, he could not deny himself this pleasure.

For Katerina, in the few minutes it took for her to lead Sergeant Donny Donowitz up the slightly creaking stairs, her resolve grew until she was certain that all she wanted was this man. Her fear of men was at an end. This encounter with Donny was to be the wax that sealed that part of her past away: she decided to never again think of, or remember, what it was like to be forced. Donny would replace Dieter; she would be free of the Major's cold hands and instead would be encompassed with warmth.

Donny tore off his coat, jumper and shirt, dropping the clothes to the floor haphazardly. Katerina ran her hands over his muscled, scarred arms and fisted her hands in his hair, pulling his face to hers. They joined to kiss intensely for a second but then broke apart again. She fought with her dress as Donny threw off his weapons - two pistols and a knife - and then turned to help her. Sliding her out of the dress, he picked Katerina up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, wearing nothing but a shift and her stockings. He kissed her neck, nipping the skin there; she responded with a moan. She pulled his vest free from his trousers and slipped her hands underneath, clawing at his chest, pushing aside the metal dogtags that hung there. Donny dropped her on the bed and unbuttoned his trousers, yanking off his braces. Katerina knelt and helped him pull his vest over his head. She ran her lips over his chest as he kicked off his boots.

After what had seemed like an age, they were both as naked as they were to be and beside each other. Their ador had diminished somewhat and they slowed down, kissing more gently - but no less deeply. Donny positioned himself above her and pushed himself into her. She gasped as the pleasure heightened, and rocked her hips against his. Katerina arched her back to meet his thrusts and moaned as he placed her legs around his hips. He held her waist as they met, the flesh there pale beneath his dirty hands. She steadied herself against the bed as Donny moved faster and then suddenly he was shivering and she was trying to quench her cries of pleasure as the most unbounded feeling of joy exploded in her belly. Donny sprawled beside her on the bed, panting. Katerina, too, was breathless. She lay her head on his chest and waited for her breathing to return to normal.

She drew circles on his stomach with her fingers, caressing him. His own hands were in her hair, playing with the fine, silken strands. Katerina ceased the movement in her wrists and replaced her finger tips with her mouth. She travelled slowly up his torso to his ribcage, where she stopped as her mouth encountered cold metal. The dogtag beneath her lips lay on Donny's pectoral muscle, above his heart.

'Who was he?' she asked quietly. Donny sat up a little, and she adjusted her position to a more comfortable one, leaning against the headboard of the bed. The Bear Jew took the oval tag between his fingers.

'This one? His name was Arne. He was a Major. He was my first.'

'The first man you killed?' Katerina inquired.

'Nah, the first Nazi I killed with my bat.'

'Oh,' she replied. She picked out another dogtag from the eight or so that lay on his chest. 'And him?'

'Sergeant Werner Rachtman. Nasty bugger. Killed him only a coupl'a weeks ago.' Donny's voice was infused with a victorious tone - he was proud of himself and what he had achieved. Katerina looked at the tags and picked them up in her palm. They clinked against each other like coins. Fedwëbel, Sturmbahnfuhrer… they were all high-ranked. Captains, and Majors, and Sergeants.

'They all died in pain, yes?'

'Katy, it's hard not to die in pain. You have to be shot in the head, or stabbed in the neck to not feel loads'a pain when you die. That's what death is. It's violent, you know?' Donny replied carefully. He justified his life against his death; he knew he would not have a peaceful end. A violent life culminating in a violent death.

He sat up on the bed and pulled his trousers and vest back on. Katerina watched him from the other end of the bed. She closed her eyes and rubbed them with her palms. The makeup she wore smudged a little but she decided she didn't care. Donny relaxed back onto the bed, and she joined him, laying down by his side and curling her legs around his.

'Are you afraid of dying?' Katerina asked quietly. The room was silent for a long time, and she suddenly felt she had made a mistake in asking. Just as she was about to apologise, Donny coughed and spoke.

'Yeah, I s'pose so. I mean, it ain't like I know it won't hurt. I know it'll be painful. I know it'll be hard for me, and hard for my brothers. I'm just glad I don't have to tell my ma back home. So I guess I am afraid of death. But it'd be unnatural, not to be, right? Walking through life not afraid of death… I would be scared to meet that kind of a man.' He paused. Katerina remained silent. 'I don't wanna die. Not yet, at least. I want things outta life, y'know? I don't wanna be just The Bear Jew. I want a family, children. A wife. I weren't made for killin', despite the fact I'm good at it. I want more.'

Katerina pulled herself closer to Donny, feeling his warmth through her silk shift. A tiredness overcame her, and she tucked her head under his chin. The Bear Jew kissed her forehead.

'Thank you,' he whispered into her hair. Her reply was lost as she gave in to sleep, her breath warm on his neck. He gazed at the shadowed room until, eventually, his eyelids closed.

An American Soldier, and the daughter of one of Hitler's right-hand men, asleep in each others' arms.


	5. You Fucked A German?

_Well I hope you had as much fun reading the last chapter as I had writing it. More good stuff to follow! Remember, please review!_

* * *

The morning dawned harsh, and clear, the pale sunlight drifting through the window like shafts of silver. Katerina awoke first, and spent the minutes until Donny roused from his own sleep gazing at him. He looked so childlike and peaceful, with no grin or frown adorning his face. She stood up off the bed as his eyelids started fluttering and looked around her room. Donny's - and her - clothes covered the floor. She grinned with pleasure as memories of the night she had spent in Donny's arms returned to her.

Donny yawned behind her, and she turned to face him. However as she did so, something caught her eye. The door was open. Katerina went to it, fear in her stomach. Had anyone seen Donny - and recognised him! - she would be in so much danger from the Nazis! She was sure Donny had locked the door. But now she thought about it, she couldn't remember. Had they even closed it?

'Whassup?' Donny mumbled from the bed, picking up on the frantic way she was moving.

'Did we lock the door? I cannot recall! Did we?' she asked hurriedly.

'Nah, don't think so… I shut it, though.'

'Oh God!' Katerina cried, slamming the door and turning to face him. 'Someone has been here! Donny, you have to go now!'

'Look, Katy, if they did see me here last night they would've surely just shot me in my sleep, right? Stop frettin' and come here,' he said. Reluctantly, Katerina crossed her room and let herself be taken into a embrace. Resting her head on his chest, she calmed and her breathing returned to normal. 'Although,' Donny continued, 'I'd better be goin' anyway. The 'tenant'll be wonderin' where I'm at.'

As he started to pick up his clothes from the floor, Katerina got changed herself, replacing her old stockings - which now had a hole in them just below the knee of the left one - with clean ones and sorting through various clothes until she found what she wanted. She knew she had been foolish to suspect someone had been in the room. It was silly - of course no-one had been!

'Show me?' Donny questioned. Katerina turned to face him and he looked her up and down. She was wearing high-waisted slacks made from navy material, and a loose cream blouse over which the braces of the trousers went. 'You look beautiful,' Donny murmured, and kissed her. 'But you need to sort out your hair, Katy.' He ran his fingers through it, pushing the waves from out of her face. 'Better already,' he said.

'Come,' Katerina said, pulling on his hand. She led him to the landing and gazed down the stairs, trying to discern if there was anybody in the hall beneath them. It was quiet below, but the couple could hear faint voices from the dining room. They went down the steps as soundlessly as possible, and through the hall to the front door. Kissing one last time, Katerina pushed Donny through the door and whispered, 'Goodbye,' as he went down the steps and disappeared into the alleyway just beside her house.

'Guten Morgen, Papa,' Katerina said as she came into the dining room to find her father, step-mother and Bruno seated round the table, eating breakfast. She glanced at the clock: it was ten in the morning.

'Are you hungry?' Marie asked in German. She took a plate from the pile at the centre and set a place beside Bruno.

'Thank you, Marie,' Katerina said, smiling at her stepmother. They both sat down, and Katerina took some toast from the rack beside her. Suddenly she realised something was odd. She looked around the table; nothing was out of place. Her brother's hair was messy as usual, Marie was smiling serenely, her father was frowning. Then she discerned the problem: her father was sat in a shirt and braces, with a tie.

'Papa, you are not wearing uniform. Are you going somewhere?'

'Not at all. I have decided to spend today with you and Bruno. Is this acceptable?' he asked, his mouth twitching in a style that resembled a smile.

'That sounds lovely,' Katerina replied. 'However I was thinking about going out.'

'Why? To see that man you are spending your nights with?' Henrik's voice changed very suddenly from civility to anger. Marie quickly stood up and ushered Bruno from the room. She shut the door behind her, and Katerina could hear the pair of them ascend the stairs hurriedly.

Trying to control her voice and keep a straight face, she asked, 'What are you talking about?'

'I know there was a man in your bed last night, Katerina. I know that you didn't return from the kitchen and that instead you spent your night with a man of no military or social worth.'

'Papa, honestly, I don't know what you are talking about,' she responded innocently.

'Don't talk to me like I'm stupid!' Henrik yelled, slamming his fist onto the table. Cutlery and cups jangled with the force of it.

Knowing that her father could - and would - get violent when his control was threatened, Katerina rushed to put right the anger she had invoked in him. 'I'm sorry Papa. It won't happen again, I promise.' Her father sighed and took a bite of his toast.

'Who was he?' he asked. When Katerina did not answer, he asked again. 'What is his name, Katerina?'

'His name is Wilhelm,' she lied smoothly. 'I'm sorry, Papa, I won't see him again.'

'You're just lucky it wasn't me who saw you together, Katerina. Had it been, I would have shot him and you. You are my daughter, you do as I say! Do you understand me?' Henrik's voice went taught as he spoke these words. Katerina looked up at him through her eyelashes and saw that his lips were white. She did not doubt his words: he would have killed her, but it would have been mainly because there was a Basterd in her bed, not just a man. Katerina realised that Donny had never told her why he had come in the first place. She wondered why it was. Distracted from her breakfast, she rose from the table and started towards the door. She stopped half-way there and turned to face her father.

'Can we go to the park?'

* * *

Donny had not visited Katerina in the hopes of getting into her bed, but he could not deny that it was an enjoyable perk of what potentially could have been a disastrous visit. He had gone to talk to her about working with them - without Aldo's consent to do so. However, he had not even mentioned it and was glad now that he hadn't. She would surely have blown up, her anger at the concept of betrayal was so great. He had known he was being foolish, but at the same time he yearned to see her again. Not that he regretted going to her house - of course not. But now that Donny had shared that night with her, he felt a obligation to Katy that might not have been born from the feelings he had toward her. She knew nothing of the world, or of the way men worked, and Donny felt distanced from himself, duty-bound to protect her from what he might do to her world.

Romanticism was not one of Donny's strong points. He did not really understand women, and he didn't try to change that. He visited whores for quick relief, even back in America, and had not once settled down with a woman, despite his growing age, unlike Raine, who had a wife back in Tennessee and two small children.

Donny and Raine were the oldest of The Basterds, the Lieutenant nearing thirty-five and Donny just beyond thirty. Utivich, at only twenty, was the youngest Basterd. Even he had a woman waiting for him in America, a young Jewish girl named Sarah. Wicki was in Donny's position - getting older and with still no woman beside him. Stiglitz was younger than he looked - only twenty-six, despite his apparent age of thirty. Donny figured that Stiglitz was too cold to ever find a woman he could love. She would have to be very fierce, and capable of melting the shield that the German held around him.

Donny sincerely hoped that Stiglitz found his girl, one day. He liked the ex-Nazi - he had something about him that was sharp, and that's what Donny admired in him. His own presence was more solid, violent, but Stiglitz seemed to radiate acute intelligence. He was very dangerous: quick, clever and very masterful in the art of killing.

As he walked through the lively streets of Paris, bored of having to scuttle in the shadows and conceal himself, Donny's thoughts returned to Katy. He remembered her gasps of joy at his touch and his insides clenched. He wanted to go back to her, to hold her slender frame in his arms, to make love to her again. Never again would he be alone - a part of her was inside him: the smell of her skin, the silken strands of hair that he had pushed from her face, and the beautiful glistening of her eyes as she lay beneath him, gazing up at him, trusting him.

All around Donny, the world was blazing with life. The sky burned bright blue, with a pale yellow sun; fruit on the market stalls were ripe and juicy; children ran through the streets full of vivacity, enjoying the summery weather. Everywhere around him, life exploded in a mass of colour and noise. And inside him, a new feeling burst into life: a spark that flared and shone like a beacon. It was so pleasurable it almost ached. And at the centre of it was Katy's face.

It didn't take long for his fellow Basterds to figure out there was something changed about him. His grumpy mood had lifted - he was cheerful and spoke plenty with the other men, raising the spirits of everyone. It was Zimmerman - Donny's close friend - who put together the pieces first.

'You got laid!' he exclaimed at last, after almost a week of bemusement and confusion. 'That's what it is - why you're so fucking weird! You fucked some chick and now you're all happy!' Donny waved the accusations off, grinning madly.

'Alright, it's true!' he cried, mistakenly thinking they would let up if he admitted to it. He fended off Hirschberg's, Wicki's and Utivich's taunts, ignoring them as they queried as to the look, shape and feel of the girl who had released 'the new Donny.' The four of them were seated round the makeshift table in the abandoned flat they had been inhabiting the past few months, playing poker. Stiglitz was sat silently in the corner, cleaning his guns and knife with a cloth, listening to the discussion in the middle of the room.

'Just give us something to work with, Donowitz!' Hirschberg joked.

'She's blonde.'

'Donny Donowitz, you fucked a German?' Utivich and Hirschberg hollered in unison. At this, Stiglitz's hands froze, and his whole body stiffened. Donny rubbed his nose with his fingers to hide his embarrassment. Then he turned defensive.

'So what if I did? She was pretty, and she was willing,' he said. Of course, Donny didn't feel that dismissive about Katy, but if he told them how he thought she was beautiful, and one of the most enchanting women he had ever seen, they would mock him to the ends of the earth.

'So… what's her name?' Wicki inquired, sincere. Donny looked down.

'I… I don't know,' he lied. 'But she sure was pretty.'

'Yeah, I'll bet she was!' They laughed. Stiglitz returned to his cleaning with just a little more force than before.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Hirschberg got up, grabbed a gun and went to the door. He returned with Aldo, Zimmerman and Omar. Omar held two boxes with his gun balanced on top, and Zimmerman had a large sack slung over one shoulder.

'Donny, give us a hand?' Zimmerman asked. Donny took one of Omar's boxes, and the three went through to the kitchen.

'Alright, what we got?' Donny asked, surveying the containers sitting on the kitchen floor. Omar pointed to the sack.

'Potatoes and cheese,' he explained, then turned to the boxes. 'And bread and fruit.'

'We'll sort out the meal,' Zimmerman offered quickly. Omar thanked them and went to play cards.

'Okay, Zim, what are we doing?' Donny questioned.

'I have something for you. Do you remember the girl you rescued, who was here maybe a week ago?' Zimmerman dug in his pocket. Donny struggled to keep a straight face at the mention of Katy, but succeeded - just. His American friend drew a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, about the size of a large coin. 'By chance, she saw us, and she gave me this. I haven't read it.' He handed Donny the slip of paper, who unfolded it and read it quickly.

Tomorrow night, late. Come in through the door you used last time.

Katerina x

He tucked the paper into his breast pocket and thanked Zimmerman, who frowned at him.

'Don't let Stiglitz find out, whatever you do,' he warned. Donny nodded. The unspoken fact hung between them in the air, heavy and thick. Both men knew that Stiglitz had gone to Katerina's house, and they also both had realized that their German friend did not get attached easily. They sensed that he had some sort of a connection to the girl - whether it was because he knew her, or because he felt protective, they did not know. But it didn't matter. The fact was that, if Stiglitz were to find out about Katerina and Donny's relationship, he would be irate. And neither of them wanted a confrontational Stiglitz on their hands.

'We have a problem,' Raine declared, as the group of Basterds gathered in the flat. 'The Jew Hunter. We have intel from inside the High Command that he's gettin' closer to us,' he explained.

'So we move?' suggested Zimmerman. The men around him nodded in agreement.

'Yeah, I already thought o' that. But we need'a find somewhere to go.'

'Back to the forest?' Wicki proposed. 'They wouldn't think we would return there.'

'It's too far out,' argued Hirschberg. 'It's a complete bitch to get out there and back into the centre of Paris.'

'I already thought o' all these possibilities,' Raine said, nodding. 'But the truth is, I don't wanna move. Hans Landa ain't gonna find us again, and this could be our only opportunity to dispatch o' him.'

'Why won't he find us again?' Stiglitz asked. He was the only one who had stayed silent up until then, and the only one who had picked up on what Raine had said.

'That's the other thing I need to talk to ya'll about. We have orders from our lines: we're pulling out.' The reaction to this statement was mixed - a combination of groans and a shout of 'No way!' from Donny, tinted with the enthusiasm of going back to America that radiated from almost every man in the room. 'But - and there is a but - we ain't just slinkin' off back to America with our tails between our legs - no. We got us one more job to do. We're joinin' up with an English soldier and a German double agent for our last assignment. Operation Kino.'


	6. Gestapo Killer Hugo Stiglitz

_Sorry I haven't updated for so long. I've been focussing on another of my stories - Warrior, Leader, Lover, KIng. This isn't the best chapter, but I like it. Please enjoy, and if you have a moment, I would very much appreciate a review!_

Katerina was asleep when Donny crept into her bedroom at one in the morning. She was sprawled across the bed, still in her clothes, her hair loose and tangled.

Donny turned the light on and sat down beside her, watching as her eyelids flickered and her fingers twitched as she slept. He gazed at her sleeping form for a few moments, not wanting to disturb her peace.

Was this truly the girl he had saved that night? Was she really the same girl - beaten and raped - who he had heard screaming? It couldn't be; she looked so calm, so adult - there was no trace of the innocent child who had allowed her trust to be breached so violently. She was not the same person. There was no chance of it; she was stronger, braver, more clever.

Donny took off his jacket and boots, then sat down again wearing just a shirt, vest and trousers. He reached over and pushed the hair from Katerina's face. She blinked as his cold hands brushed her skin and her eyes opened.

'Donny?' she mumbled, her voice husky with sleep.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then climbed into Donny's lap and hugged him. He took her face in his hands and kissed her softly.

'Have you missed me?' Donny whispered into her ear, his breath hot on her neck.

'You have no idea,' Katerina replied. 'My father has made me spend the entire week with Mayer - a Nazi Obersturmführer. I don't know what he is trying to accomplish.'

No matter how much she thought on the matter, Katerina really could not determine what her father was attempting to achieve by having her watched and constantly chaperoned by the six-foot-tall, blond, blue-eyed Nazi. Was it because Henrik wanted her to forget Donny? Or was it because he was suspicious of her? Whatever the cause, Mayer's constant presence was inspiring in her an absolute abhorrence for him, her father and the entire male population of the Third Reich.

'If you want,' Donny said, running his thumb along Katerina's jawline, 'I could kill him, and then he wouldn't bother you.'

Katerina placed an expression of mock contemplation on her face and grinned.

'It's tempting…'

Donny cut her off with a fierce kiss, crushing his lips on hers, sliding his tongue into her mouth. Katerina reciprocated, pushing him backwards onto the bed and leaning over his chest, nuzzling his skin through the shirt he wore. Her hands tugged at his belt and the buttons of his fly, and she could feel his hardness tight against her palm.

Teasing him, she slipped one finger into his waistband and then drew it out and sat up, smirking at Donny's low moan.

'Sit up,' she said provocatively.

Donny obeyed her, pushing himself into a sitting position and demanding her mouth on his. As they kissed insistently, Katerina ripped open his shirt and scraped her nails down his bare chest, avoiding the dog-tags that hung there.

'Take your clothes off,' Donny ordered.

Katerina removed her stockings and garters languorously, grinning at him, then unbuttoned her dress and slipped it over her shoulders, leaving her kneeling between Donny's legs wearing a see-through silk slip and nothing else.

She bent over his crotch again and pulled his trousers and pants down, freeing him to her. She raked her lips over his stomach, feeling him tensing at ever brush of her skin against his, and traveled up to his chest, where she gently kissed his nipple.

Donny pulled her over his body, rucking her underslip up around her waist, then lowered her onto him. She moaned, arching her back and rolling her hips slowly over his. Katerina dug her nails into his stomach. Her breaths came quicker as she sped up.

Then Donny took her and rolled them together, so he was positioned above her, and then he pushed hard and fast into her, again and again, feeling her muscles tightening around him.

'Donny!' Katerina yelped, and pulled herself up, wrapping her arms around him and clenching her hands in his hair as he grasped her buttocks and pulled her closer to him, steadying her against his own thrusts.

And they came together, both shivering against each other, their skin and thighs tense and warm.

They laid down together, their naked bodies curling around each other. And as their breathing evened out and synchronized, Donny kissed her again and again, his large hands resting on her waist and hers on his chest.

They lay in silence for a while, as their heartbeats slowed and, outside the window, the moon curved through the sky.

'I have some news,' Donny said.

'What is it?' Katerina asked, worried. Something in Donny's tone made her think she wouldn't like what he was going to tell her.

'We're… well, we're pullin' out.'

'You are going back to America?'

'Don't worry! We've got time,' Donny reassured her. 'We ain't leaving for a few months.'

Katerina took the news well, Donny thought. She didn't cry or complain, simply smiled and kissed him.

'But I have a gift for you,' he continued.

He climbed from the bed and dug around in his coat pocket. Finding what it was he was searching for, Donny sat back down beside Katerina and held out his hand to her. Nestled in his palm was a circular locket, made of brass and set with a cabochon of amber in an etched frame.

Katerina gasped and touched the locket hesitantly.

'It's beautiful!'

'Can I put it on you?' he asked.

She pushed her hair aside and allowed him to clip the locket around her throat. Opening it, she saw that one side was empty, and the other held a picture of Donny.

'Now there's no excuse for you to forget me,' the Bear Jew grinned.

'I could never forget you, Donny. Never.'

Katerina caressed his cheek and kissed him. He kissed her back and held her tightly, and stroked her hair.

'I will never forget you either.'

* * *

_Six Days Later_

It was early in the morning, around six o'clock, when Katerina woke, shivering, from a nightmare in which Donny's large, warm hands became Dieter's cold, hard fingers which had crept over her flesh like spiders. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and then sat up, gazing around the shadowy room. The house was quiet, but there was a warm smell of bread and porridge floating up the stairs - the servants were clearly awake.

Katerina had taken to eating in the kitchens during the last week, mainly to avoid her father. He had been acting particularly controlling ever since she had last seen Donny. She wondered if the two were connected. Henrik had also been making sure Katerina spent all her free time with Mayer - and it was killing her. But unless she wanted to incur the wrath of her father and gain a few bruises, she would have to put up with him. And so she did, simply waiting for the next time she could see Donny.

Thinking that she might as well stay up, seeing that she was awake, Katerina climbed out of bed and switched on her light. She picked Donny's locket up from the chest beside her bed and fastened it round her neck, then crossed to the wardrobe and opened it wide. Katerina dressed in a simple, blue dress with buttons and a collar, and, as an afterthought, added a thick cardigan for warmth.

Fingering her locket, she left her room and descended the stairs barefoot. She had been right about the servants being awake. In the kitchens, Madeleine, Ada and the other three servants were sat around the table in the centre of the room, eating their breakfasts. Monsieur Dubois - the cook - was also sat at the table, along with the two kitchen boys he employed. They all had bowls of porridge before them, and Dubois was reading a newspaper and drinking coffee.

'Bonjour,' said Katerina as she came into the kitchens.

'Good morning, miss,' said Gabriel, the youngest of Dubois' kitchen boys. 'Can I get you some breakfast?'

'Thank you, that would be lovely.'

Gabriel handed her a bowl full of porridge and poured her a cup of coffee before sitting back down and digging into his own food. Katerina sat down next to him, opposite Dubois.

As she began to eat, she glanced up at the newspaper the cook was reading. The headline read, '_Hugo Stiglitz: le tueur a retourné à Paris?_' Katerina dropped her spoon into her bowl and stared at the newspaper. Underneath the headline it said, '_Gestapo killer Hugo Stiglitz has returned to Paris, and is believed to be hiding in the western city. The main suspect in the murder of Gestapo Major D. Hellstrom, Army defector Hugo Stiglitz is -_' And the rest was hidden beneath Dubois' hand.

Katerina went back to her food, every so often catching herself gazing at the picture of Hugo that had been printed at the bottom of the page. It was clearly a photo taken for some sort of identity card, and Katerina felt that it did not do Hugo justice. His face was interesting - not bland, as the picture would suggest. And the photo had failed to capture the beautiful mouth and the way it curved just at the corner.

She shook the thoughts from her head, having to remind herself that she loved Donny. Her fingers went again to the locket around her neck and she remembered the feel of Donny's skin against hers, the way his muscled arms held her tightly, the smell of him - oilcloth and mud. Hugo didn't smell muddy. He smelt clean - everything about him was sharp and calculated. They were like the day and the night - complete opposites.

Soon Katerina was alone at the table. The maids had left to complete their morning chores and the two boys - Gabriel and Luc - had been sent to the town on errands for Dubois, who had returned to baking croissants.

Katerina finished her food and put her bowl in the sink, then sat back down again with a fresh cup of coffee and opened the newspaper Dubois had been reading.

She scanned the article about Hugo for any reference to him being sighted and found only one: he had been seen with an unknown girl about three weeks before the article had been printed. The press were calling out to her to identify herself so she could shed light on where Stiglitz might be staying.

Katerina read the words with horror. _She_ was the unidentified girl - it had been her, walking with Hugo through Paris after he had kissed her in the bar.

_Oh my God_, Katerina thought. _What am I involved with?_

Suddenly Ada came into the kitchen and said, 'Master's awake. Breakfast's expected in twenty minutes!' Then she disappeared again.

Hurriedly, Katerina grabbed some scissors from a drawer and cut Hugo's picture from the newspaper. She folded it in half and slipped it into the pocket of her dress, put the newspaper back down on the table and thanked Dubois for the food, then climbed the stairs back to her bedroom.

Once there, Katerina took off her locket and opened it. In one half, there was a picture of her mother over the picture of Donny - so no-one would suspect anything if the locket was found - and in the other, a picture of Bruno. She gently raised the image of her brother and slid the folded photograph of Hugo underneath.

When she had finished hiding the pictures of the two men she held closest to her heart, Katerina put the locket back on. It hung just between her breasts. She knew Donny would like to know that. Then she thought of what Hugo would say. Thinking of his reaction - were she to tell him - Katerina giggled, imagining the look of shock on the German's face. But then her mind strayed to what else she would like on her breasts - Hugo's hands and mouth, for instance - and she sobered. _Donny,_ she thought. _I love Donny_. But she couldn't keep her mind away from Hugo's ice-cold eyes, and the electrifying feeling of his lips on hers.

Katerina decided that she needed to see him one more time, to make sure. He knew where she lived - and he knew that she was being watched by Mayer. Suddenly it came to her that if Aldo really was worried about her spilling his secrets, he would definitely spare one of his men to watch her.

Hoping that Hugo would be the one watching the house - and knowing that there was a very small chance of that happening - Katerina ran downstairs and pulled on some shoes and her coat.

'Miss Katerina? Where are you going so early?' came a voice from behind her. It was Madeleine.

'I'm going to Trocadéro. Please don't tell my father.'

'Miss, I can't lie to your father,' Madeleine said apologetically.

'Madeleine, _please_. Can you just say that I didn't tell you?' begged Katerina.

The maid deliberated for a few moments, uncertain. Then she nodded.

'Fine. But wherever you're going, it'd better be worth your father's anger.'

'Thank you,' Katerina said, and hugged Madeleine. Then she opened the front door, threw herself out of it, and shut it behind her.

* * *

The months had just changed from September to October, and the weather had finally made up its mind: winter would soon lay thick upon the streets of Paris. The sky was pale, the clouds low and heavy with rain. A perpetual wind inhabited the lanes and alleyways, and cold seeped through the city.

Hugo liked the cold. It made him feel alive, and sharp. He thought that it honed his senses, instead of dulled them. He didn't feel the cold, just felt what it did to him, felt how it affected him.

He was leant against the wall on the street a little way down from Katerina's house, dressed in the uniform of an _Obersturmführer,_ smoking a roll-up. He breathed the smoke out through his nose, watching the road with icy blue eyes.

His cigarette burned down, and Hugo flicked it to the ground before pulling a small tin out of an inside pocket. Crouching down and balancing the tin on his knee, he took a paper from inside and filled it with tobacco, before expertly licking and rolling it. He slipped the cigarette between his lips, and then, tucking the tin back inside his pocket, Hugo lit a match and put it to the end. He inhaled deeply and stood up.

Hugo didn't really know why he had volunteered to watch Katerina's house. He wanted to keep an eye on her - she could tell anyone about them! - but there was something else too. Ever since he had kissed her… and she was so beautiful… and she had kissed him back. He didn't believe what she had said, that if she hadn't, they would've been arrested. She had wanted to kiss him back - she had pulled him closer, deepened the kiss of her own accord, frowned when they broke apart. She wanted him to kiss her.

But since that day in the café - no, since before then, since he had touched her cheek in the front room of her father's house - all he had wanted to do was see her again, to touch her again; to kiss her again. He replayed that moment in his mind over and over again - if fact, he replayed every moment he and Katerina had shared, from that first day when she bit his hand, to the last time he had seen her, outside her house, when he had lain his hand on her cheek.

Hugo didn't express his feelings lightly. In fact, even before he accepted that he had feelings he would examine them, analyze every detail, incase he was mistaken. The fact that he had shown her how he felt, and she had turned him down… it hurt.

Hugo took another drag on his cigarette and then dropped it to the floor, stamping down with his boot heel to crush it into the ground. He was just about to roll another when his eye caught a flash of movement. Someone had come out of Katerina's house and ran down the steps. Hugo recognized her at once: the long, blonde hair, tied in a messy tangle at the nape of her neck, the willowy proportions and slender frame; it was Katerina. She crossed the street, her coat fluttering out behind her, and disappeared into an alleyway. Hugo jumped up and ran after her, following her down the alley way. He kept twenty metres behind her as she walked through the city and along the river until she stopped, ten minutes later, outside a bookshop on Rue de Longchamp. Hugo held back, uncertain as to what she was up to.

He couldn't work out what the Hell she was doing. Why was she up at half past six in the morning, and standing outside a bookshop in Trocadéro, seemingly waiting for someone?

Hugo rolled another cigarette and lit it, then sat down on a window ledge, gazing at her. He longed to go over to her and take her in his arms and kiss her but he knew that she wouldn't want him to. He watched as she paced up and down the pavement, looking around. But the street was empty: it was nearly seven o'clock on a Sunday morning. No-one would be up this early.

As he watched her, Katerina visibly grew more and more frustrated until eventually she yelled, 'Damn you, Hugo!'

Suddenly realizing with a jolt that she had been waiting for _him_, Hugo sucked once more on his cigarette and then stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself to her.

'Where have you been?' Katerina cried in German when she saw him.

But Hugo, knowing that she had wanted to see him, didn't answer. Instead, he threw his cigarette onto the floor, crossed the road, grabbed Katerina by her arms and pulled her to him. He kissed her passionately, holding her so tightly she couldn't move.

And she kissed him back, tasting the cigarette smoke on his lips, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling herself closer to him. His tongue slid through her parted lips and her breath hitched.

Hugo couldn't bear the pleasure that spread from his mouth to his fingertips, so he kissed her harder, sliding his hands up over her shoulder blades to her neck. And then he felt her hands traveling downwards, over his stomach.

'Rina,' he whispered apologetically.

Another Basterd with another nickname, thought Katerina with a smile. But then she realised what he meant, and the cold flush of rejection swirled through her.

'Sie wollen nicht mir,' she said, taking a step backwards, ashamed.

Hugo followed her, shaking his head. He took her face in his hands and brushed his lips on hers.

'No, Rina. You are the _only_ thing that I want.'

'Then why…?' Katerina trailed off.

Hugo kissed her again, and then again, softly, and held her chin in his fingers.

'We aren't in the most appropriate place, Rina,' he laughed.

'Oh.'

'Rina. You are a fool. I've only ever wanted _you_.'

'Hugo!' Katerina suddenly exclaimed as he went to kiss her again. 'You were in the newspaper - they said you had been sighted in Paris!'

Hugo raised one eyebrow.

'But what if you're recognised?'

'It took you long enough to recognise me,' Hugo replied, reminding Katerina of the day they first met.

'But that's because I didn't care who you were - when you were in the newspaper back then, I mean,' Katerina explained.

'It'll be fine. I promise.'

He kissed her again, tenderly, and she melted into him. She could feel the warmth radiating from Hugo's chest, and she wanted to become a part of him, to share his skin. Not one thought of Donny crossed her mind as she embraced him. All Katerina could think of was the sensation of Hugo's lips on hers, his tongue, his hands.

And then, from what seemed like an eternity and a day away, someone cried out.

'Katerina!'

Hugo and Katerina broke apart, both turning to stare at who had shouted at them. Mayer stood, in all his uniformed glory, about thirty meters away, his blond hair messy and his eyes wide. As they stared at him, he began to come towards them.

'_Scheisse!_' Katerina swore. 'Hugo, if he recognises you, we're both dead.'

'If I leave now, it will look even stranger.'

Hugo came to attention, bringing his heels together and flicking his hand into the 'Heil Hitler'. Katerina heard Mayer copy the movement. Then he was beside her.

'Who are you?' the Nazi asked, putting a possessive hand onto Katerina's shoulder.

'_Obersturmführer_ Anselm Pfeiffer,' Stiglitz lied smoothly. 'And yourself?'

'_Obersturmführer_ Mayer Gottlieb.'

'Mayer,' said Katerina, shaking his hand off her shoulder. 'What are you doing here?'

'Your father noted your absence. He doesn't like you disobeying him. So he ordered me to come and fetch you.'

'How did you know where we were?'

'The maid in your father's employ,' Mayer explained shortly. 'She's not so good at keeping secrets.'

'I'm not going with you, Mayer.'

Katerina gazed levelly at him, showing him that she wasn't afraid, before taking a step back. She could feel Stiglitz behind her, felt his arm on her shoulder blade, tense and hard.

'Rina, you should go,' Hugo said.

'Listen to the man, Katerina. He seems to know what is best for you,' Mayer advised, his voice low.

Scared that if she allowed the two men to spend any more time with each other, a fight might erupt, Katerina turned back to Hugo and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She felt his lips soften under hers, and pressed herself against him.

'I _will_ see you soon,' she whispered.

'I wouldn't be so sure,' Mayer contradicted. He took a firm grip on her arm and gently pulled her away.

Katerina turned to look back at Hugo. He was stood erect, tense. She gazed at him for a second, then started walking again.

But she was right. She would see him soon.


	7. Lenin's Desk

The desk that stood in the centre of the room was a masterpiece of 19th century Russian design. It had been acquired by Wilhelm II during the Russian Civil War; or, more accurately, during the peace treaty talks between the Kaiser and Vladimir Lenin.

A mass of polished mahogany, inlaid brass and supple black leather made for an intimidating piece of furniture. There was a fitted vanity board between the two pedestals, concealing the space beneath the desk and hiding it from the rest of the room.

On the smooth leather writing surface on the top of the desk lay a black zippered portfolio, the cover shiny and tooled with the _Hoheitsabzeichen_ of Hitler's Germany. Arrayed neatly beside it were a succession of pens, a blue-glass ink well and a few sheets of thick, off-white paper. Aside from a telephone, a folded map of Paris and the stationary, the desktop was clear and uncluttered.

The rest of the room was minimally furnished, the walls paneled to waist hight with mahogany, the plain plaster above painted a soft grey-blue; it would have been a dark room, but the heavy chandelier hanging from the decorated rose in the middle of the ceiling cast light even into the corners, dispelling the shadows. A few paintings were mounted on the walls, the biggest behind the desk - a detailed painting of Germany, with even the minor towns and villages named in penned ink. Apart from a half-dozen chairs and a table hidden beneath a hundred maps, the room was empty.

Suddenly, the door opened, and a man with unnerving eyes and an unforgiving posture strode into the room and knocked the door shut behind him with a booted foot. Shrugging out of the big black leather coat that almost dwarfed him, the man hung the coat on the back of a chair and threw his SS-marked hat onto the seat. Then he poured himself a whiskey from a square carafe and downed it. His name was Colonel Hans Landa.

A voice came from behind the door, accompanied by a quiet knock. 'Colonel?'

'Entrez!' he commanded.

A small woman entered, her expression turning wary as she noticed the empty tumbler in his hand. She was dressed simply in a long-sleeved, tailored dress of pale blue cotton, belted at the waist and tied at the collar with a bow.

'Clara, what is it?' Landa asked in perfect French. He was surprised she was still here; it was well past midnight, _and_ a Sunday.

'Sturmführer Horst is here,' she replied. 'He has been waiting for about an hour. Would you like me to send him in?'

Landa frowned. Horst should still be out in Paris, or at least busy dealing with what he had found…

'Oui.'

Clara left him. He poured another whiskey, brushed down his trousers and took a seat behind his desk. He had only just sat down when Sturmführer Horst pushed his way into the room and swept his hand up into a salute. Lennart Horst was a large, round man with a red face, small eyes and a tufted moustache; to many of the German soldiers, he resembled a rather grumpy walrus, therefore gaining him the nickname '_Walross_'.

'Sturmführer,' Landa greeted him with a cold stare and a slight tilt of his head. 'Please tell me the meaning of this.'

'The meaning of what, Oberst?'

'Why are you not in northern Paris, attending to the business I charged you with?'

'We reached the flat with no trouble, Oberst,' Horst began in German. 'Everything was well until we entered the building. I sent Kohn up the stairs to see what might await us and he came back, unharmed, to tell me that the door to the flat was open and the flat itself was empty.'

Landa took a sip of his whiskey and narrowed his eyes. 'Empty?'

'Ja, Oberst. Empty. Of Americans, at least. The rooms were overflowing with guns and ammunition and bags of grain, but there were no terrorists.'

'You are saying that they anticipated our attack?' Landa asked quietly.

Horst shook his head, looking worried.

'No! Well, maybe. I don't know,' he babbled. 'We were there for a good few hours; the men scoured the flat for anything of use to you.'

'And where is this collection?'

Horst dug a hand into the inside pocket of his overcoat and dug around for a few moments. Then he brought out a fistful of paper.

'Here, Oberst.'

Landa picked up the first piece of paper and skim-read the words written on in quickly. Then he put down his tumbler and sifted through the others.

'Where were these notes?'

'Inside a book. I have it here.' Horst pulled a flaking paperback from his coat and laid it before the Colonel. It was a collection of Matthew Arnold poetry, or so the cover claimed, the pages worn and folded. Landa inspected it closely.

'Those notes tell an interesting story, Horst,' Landa mused, his deft hands flicking through the pages of the book.

'I've read them, Oberst. This 'Donny' is clearly having some sort of intimate relationship with the girl who signs them: _Katerina_. It is on every note that she says her name. She must know that he is a terrorist, else why does she write the notes in secret?'

'It is not just that, Horst. She writes of soldiers - of German soldiers - and of her father's importance in the High Command… not only is she consorting with a member of The Basterds, she is doing it knowingly, and she is German-born. Do you know what that makes her, Horst?'

The Walross hesitated before answering. 'A traitor.'

'Indeed,' Landa agreed, smiling softly. He picked up the telephone and dialed _0_, then spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. 'Clara, find me Marie Friedmann.'

* * *

It had been four days since Mayer had found Katerina and Hugo together in Trocadéro, and the bruises both he and her father had given her were still blossoming. She had counted them as she lay in the bath tub that morning, immersed in the scalding water. Fingertip-sized purple marks on her wrists and the top of her arms, courtesy of Mayer; a red-and-blue bruise covering the lower half of her cheek, from the twenty-odd times her father had slapped her; and one on her leg, where she had hit the table as Mayer dragged her in front of Henrik.

'My daughter,' he had said, in a voice of cold disappointment, as Katerina shivered before him, 'is no wanton whore. My daughter will follow in her mother's footsteps, and marry a successful soldier, and bear sons of true Aryan heritage.'

Afterwards, when she staggered from Henrik's office, her face bleeding and a fierce anger inside her, Mayer had picked her up and bathed her. He had looked away whilst she undressed, and wiped the blood from her face, and apologized for hurting her.

_He is a bastard,_ Katerina thought as she glared at him across the table. _Just like my father, and just like Dieter, and the Führer. Just like every Nazi there is in this world._

They were sat together in a small café hidden just down an alleyway near Katerina's father's house. Mayer had taken her to the cinema, to see _Der Schmerz Bitterer Tränen,_ a new film starring Bridget von Hammersmark. She had wanted to refuse, but one look at her father's face had made her agree.

It had been light when they went into _Le Gamaar_; now, dusk had come and gone, and the street outside was cloaked in night. Katerina turned her gaze to the window, and watched as snow started to fall, absentmindedly fingering Donny's locket.

'Your coffee is growing cold,' Mayer observed. His own cup contained only dregs.

He had to say it twice before Katerina replied. 'Sorry.'

'We can leave, if you want, fräulein. You look tired.'

'Yes, that's a good idea.' Katerina stood up. 'I can walk myself home, Mayer.'

'I don't think that wise,' he objected.

Slipping into her coat, Katerina smiled and rolled her eyes. 'I can almost see my father's house from here, Mayer. I'm sure I can walk across _one street_ unhindered.'

They left the café as she spoke, and they both immediately lifted their collars against the snow.

'Schon gut, Katerina,' Mayer said. 'Auf Wiedersehen.' He kissed her cheek - she had to stop herself from recoiling - and left her.

She gazed after him for a few seconds, then shook her head and started walking. The noise of her shoes against the pavement was muffled by the fine layer of snow; she left footprints as she walked. The café _was_ only one street away from Henrik's house, but Katerina took the long way round so as to take longer before she returned home.

As she rounded a corner, the empty street opened up before her, the air swirling with snowflakes. They melted on her cheeks and started to lift the powder she had put on to cover her father's gift to her. Katerina raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes, reveling in the sharp cold wind that blew through her hair. Then a noise in an alley just off the street startled her, and she whirled around to gaze into the blackness. All she could think was _It's Dieter!_, and she had fair reason to: on the night he had raped her, it was dark and snowing - just like that night.

But then a cat flew out from the dark opening and raced across the street. Katerina laughed shakily as she watched it jump over a low wall and disappear. She scolded herself that she might be afraid of a cat, but the memory of Dieter's attack stuck with her, and it was all she could do not to run home. _One foot in front of the other,_ she thought calmly. And before she had reached the end of the street, the frightened thoughts had disappeared just like the cat.

It was only three minutes later that she first heard someone following her. The footsteps were half-concealed in the snow, and matched almost exactly to hers, but the heavy boots that caused them were distinguished from her steps easily in the quiet. Katerina had only just grasped the fact that she was being followed when suddenly someone was behind her and grabbing her wrist. She went to scream but there was a hand over her mouth, and she was being dragged into the shadows. Fighting, she heard a door open behind her and then she was inside a room almost as cold as outside, lit by a spare bulb in the centre of the ceiling.

The man released Katerina suddenly and she dropped to her knees on the hard floor, but then he was back and picking her up and pushing her against the wall, and as he did she saw who it was.

'Hugo?' she gasped, even as his lips claimed hers. The kiss was deep and rough and hungry - so hungry. Even though a burst of pain exploded through her cheek from her bruise, she never wanted to stop kissing him. When they broke apart, both were breathless and craving more. Katerina pushed herself against him and forgot all about whatever fear she might have had outside. Her hands pulled at his shirt as he gazed down at her, an unrecognizable expression on his face. Her fingers brushed the warm skin of his belly and she felt him tense beneath her.

'Are you sure?' he said softly.

In reply, Katerina kissed him hard and undid his belt buckle, wrapping her legs around his hips. She could feel that he was already aroused, and it sent a ripple of pleasure through her body. Hugo's hands were warm on her thighs as he unclipped her stockings and rubbed her skin. Pushing her dress up over her hips, he thrust into her hard and she yelped. The wall behind her, Hugo in front, she could barely move, but that realization only heightened her pleasure. She tore at his shirt and held him closer and felt him inside her, deeper and deeper, heavy breath on her neck and fire between her thighs.

And then Hugo gasped and bit her neck as he orgasmed and she cried out into his hair and felt his hands tight around her waist, his fingernails digging into her skin through the cloth of her dress.

As he held her there, she ran her fingers through his hair and pulled his face to hers, kissing his lips, eyelids, cheeks, drinking him in. And he murmured her name, 'Rina, Rina,' over and over.

'Hugh,' she whispered, after a moment of silence. Slowly, he let her down. Her feet back on solid ground, Katerina rearranged her dress as Hugo did up his trousers and belt. She reached down to pull up her stocking, but Hugo's hands were there first, and he gently pushed the thin fabric up her leg and reattached it to the suspender belt. His fingers lightly caressed her.

'Why not just reveal yourself to me?' Katerina asked quietly.

'I thought that, after what happened the last time we met, you would not want to…' his voice trailed off and he looked down, a light flush creeping over his cheeks.

'Truly?' she questioned. 'Hugh, it was as much my own fault as yours. And I don't care how many times my father hits me, I will still see you.' _And Donny,_ a small voice said in the back of her mind. She ignored it.

'He hits you?' Hugo demanded. 'Show me.'

Katerina tilted her face backwards to let the light shine on her bruise. Hugo touched it and she flinched. His hands balled into fists. 'I will kill him.'

'Please don't, Hugh. He is kind, sometimes. It was no more than I thought would happen.'

Hugo traced her jawline with a thumb, and kissed her.

'I will walk you home,' he decided.

The snow fell heavily as they walked together down the street - the temperature had dropped steeply. Hugo left her opposite her father's house, with a light kiss.

'Auf Wiedersehen,' she stammered, her teeth chattering from the cold.

'Until I see you again, Rina,' Hugo replied.

Katerina climbed the steps to the house carefully, avoiding the ice that had formed where people had already stepped. When Ada answered the door, a burst of warmth exploded from behind it, and Katerina couldn't get inside fast enough. She shook the snow off her coat and hung it up beside her father's jacket, and was about to start down the steps to the kitchen when a call came from the living room.

'Katerina!'

The door was ajar - Katerina pushed it open and stepped through. Inside, her father was seated beside Axel Dietrich. As she entered, the Sturmbannführer rose to his feet, a empty glass filled with the melting remains of ice in his hand.

'Fräulein,' he greeted her, inclining his head. 'How are you?'

'Well, thank you,' Katerina replied, a little confused. 'May I ask why you are here? The hour is so late…'

Behind Axel, Henrik stood up and spoke.

'He's here to take you to see Oberst Hans Landa.'

'Why?' Katerina gaped. He was the man who had discovered The Basterds' hideout; yet, she had heard his name many a time before that, and the reputation that came with it…

'Does it matter?' Henrik said sharply. 'Go and get changed, out of those dirty clothes. And cover up that bruise, it looks unbecoming on you.'


	8. This Is No Game!

Katerina couldn't stop her legs from shaking – the look that the Colonel was giving her over the table was one that made her feel like vomiting. His eyes were narrowed distastefully, but there was a sly glee in the depths of those eyes. He was clearly relishing the power he held over her. They were sat together in an empty room, the only furnishings two chairs and a rough-hewn table between them. The walls were white tile, slightly dirty and speckled with damp. They had been sat together for three minutes, while the Colonel stared at her and she stared back.

'Oberst,' Katerina eventually said, with an air of calm that was entirely artificial, 'how long must I sit here before you finally enlighten me as to what warranted this interrogation?'

The Colonel stared at her for a long time until he answered. Every second that he waited heightened Katerina's fear.

'You,' he finally said, pausing slightly before continuing, 'are a traitor.'

Katerina shifted in her seat to hide her shock. A series of thoughts ran through her head, each less rational than the next: _I could run away easily, get to the door and out. Axel might help me. Or I could make him shoot me. Or I could shoot him. His gun holster's unpinned; it'd be easy to snatch it away._

She acted on none of the thoughts; instead she crossed her legs and fixed a confused smile to her lips.

'I can say assuredly that I don't know what you mean, Oberst.'

'A traitor… _and _a liar. Although, how could you be the former without the latter?'

His musings were even more frightening than the way he was looking at her – it showed that he was in no doubt at all that he was right.

Anger and fear and confusion and a sudden sense of pride rushed through her. The first three were understandable, the fourth less so. But of course she should be proud. She, Katerina Friedmann, ever the obedient, submissive child, was finally showing her true colours._ I am no follower of that crazed man, _she thought defiantly, _and I am proud to be known as such._

And yet, admitting to that fact would plant her, her whole family and quite probably the two men she loved, in prison. And there was even the threat of capital punishment. And not just for her – for Bruno and Marie and Hugo and Donny. Her father was one she did not care so much for, however she would still cry to see him killed.

The only option that conserved her pride was to deny it, but then if she confessed straight away, Bruno and Marie might be saved. Admitting her guilt might even grant her some clemency. However, what of Hugo and Donny? There was no way she could live if she caused their deaths. She loved them.

'I am neither a liar, nor a traitor,' Katerina said forcefully, making her decision. She would not bow down to this disgustingly arrogant man's will. No, he would have to provide proof. 'You might at least enlighten me as to what treason I have supposedly committed, Oberst.'

The Colonel smiled, showing his teeth. They were perfect; straight and ordered, just like the rest of him.

'Please, Katerina, this conversation would be so much more pleasant if we disregarded titles and hierarchy; my name is Hans, I would like for you to call me as such.'

'Hans.' She spoke quietly. 'Please tell me what I am doing here.'

The Colonel took of his gloves, laid them on the table beside the files and smoothed his fingers over the soft leather.

'I recently heard, from a source I trust more than most, that there have been difficulties within your house. Is this true?'

'I… yes, it is, Oberst. Hans.' She frowned. 'I may not be the brightest of women, but I cannot see how a few innocent arguments with my father might lead to me being branded a traitor.'

'Furthermore,' the Colonel continued, in a voice like silk, ignoring her last sentence, 'that these difficulties had arisen because of a certain man.' He opened the top file, skimmed it quickly and then said, 'Yes, a certain man – a soldier, even – who gave his name as Anselm Pfeiffer. Is this also correct?'

'That is a name I have heard,' Katerina replied. It was the name Hugo had used to hide his identity from Mayer.

'His rank, I believe, is Obersturmführer. Or so he said, the day you met him in Trocadéro.'

'How long have you had Mayer spying on me for you?' she asked curtly, ignoring the tone of voice the Colonel had adopted – a tone of voice that implied that whatever Katerina said, he would have evidence to prove her wrong.

'I will answer your questions, _fräulein_, the moment you have answered all of mine.'

'Back to titles, then, Oberst? Have I upset you in some way?'

'Katerina, this is no game,' the Colonel hissed suddenly, leaning forwards. 'You would be wise to understand that. Your life is at stake!'

After a moment's pause, the Colonel sat back in his chair and flicked his fringe from his eyes, smoothing it back over his ear. Katerina was shocked. This man_ cared_ for her?

'I have nothing to say to you, Oberst. I am no traitor, and _you_ would be wise to heed what I say. No matter what you believe that I have done, I have not. And nothing you might do or say can make me tell otherwise. I refute these accusations, most vehemently. And unless you can prove any of the accusations made against me, I will take my leave of you, and hope that we never misunderstand each other again.'

Katerina stood up and made to leave. But the Colonel shouted 'Setz Dich hin!' and slammed his fist on the table. She froze. Regaining his composure, the Colonel straightened his files and looked up at her. 'Please return to your seat,' he said, quietly.

Katerina slid slowly back down into the chair. Her hands shook.

'I can prove at least this much, Katerina,' the Colonel began, opening the top file before him. He pulled out two pictures – both the same size, and small; the diagonal was only a hand's width – and laid them in front of Katerina. 'Both of these men have been in your house.'

The first picture was a military identification photo, enlarged and slightly blurry from it. It showed Hugo in the uniform that he had so hated, his face blank and bored. It was the self-same picture that Katerina had cut from Dubois' newspaper and hidden in her locket. She thanked God that she had left the locket in her bedroom, and hadn't brought it with her. The second photograph was one of Donny, and had clearly been taken back in America. There was a sepia-soft light to the picture, and a tree in the background of a species that Katerina did not recognize. Donny was close to the camera, and there was a coloured smudge further from the lens that could only be another person. He looked happy, calm; everything he was when he was with Katerina.

As she looked at the photo, the Colonel carefully watched her face for any sign of a reaction. He couldn't have found what he was searching for, however, for as Katerina's eyes lifted from her lovers' pictures, he frowned and sat back in his chair.

'As I said before, _both_ of these men have been in your house.' The Colonel tapped the picture of Hugo. 'Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz. It was confirmed by one of the maids in your father's employ that you had met with him in your father's house. This one, however, is a different story,' he continued, indicating Donny's picture. 'Your mother –'

'Oberst,' Katerina said sharply. 'My mother is dead. If you mean Marie, which undoubtedly you do, you would please refer to her as my _step_mother.'

The Colonel inclined his head, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

'As you wish. Your stepmother – a lovely woman, I am told, although when I saw her she was more than a little afraid and dreadfully weepy – recognized this man. She was blathering on about some promotion celebration… nothing of much interest, until she mentioned a few things that piqued my interest.'

Katerina had had enough of this skirting around the facts. 'Please, Oberst, without meaning to sound rude, I would appreciate you skipping to the point.'

'As you wish,' he repeated. 'At the end of your stepmother's story, I had pieced together a little story of my own. You vanished during the night and did not return until the morning, am I correct?'

'Yes… I was tired, I needed sleep,' Katerina started, but the Colonel overrode her.

'And there was found, the morning afterwards, shards of broken glass beneath a window? Shards from a bottle of 1930 Dunville's Three Crowns, a certain vice of your father's, as I have confirmed myself.'

'And what does this have to do with this man here?'

The Colonel leant towards her and grinned. 'You went to get another drink for your father but you were surprised in the kitchens by this man here, and therefore dropped the bottle. And instead of returning to the festivities, you took this man to your bed. Then, in the morning, your stepmother found you and him entwined together beneath the sheets, but was too afraid to tell your father for fear of what he might do. So she waited until the man was gone from the house before telling him. And we both know what follows, don't we, _fräulein_?'

Katerina shook her head slowly, her eyes wide. How did he know this? _How?_

'The best part is,' the Colonel grinned, leaning forwards conspiratorially, 'is that I worked all this out in less than twenty four hours.'

'If you know all this already, why bring me here?' Katerina questioned. 'You could have just exhibited your proof in front of the whole High Command and sat back to enjoy the show.'

The Colonel nodded, almost as if he were admitting defeat. Then he picked up Hugo's photo, and gazed at it.

'Because, Katerina – and I hate to admit this – I don't know how this man is involved.'

She laughed at him. She threw back her head and laughed.

'You thought I would tell you everything after you threatened me once, didn't you, Oberst? I'm not some frightened little whore, like my stepmother. I won't cry for you. This so called evidence you have – what can you do with it?' she asked hysterically, drunk on sudden realization. 'Throw me in a cell; cut off my head – shoot me, for all I care! Because even if I die, I will die knowing that you, Colonel Hans Landa, underestimated me. And I will die knowing that you really had no idea what was happening. You have no genius, Oberst, only cheap tricks.'

'Apologies, Katerina, it was a simple slip of the tongue. I meant 'didn't', not 'don't'. I _didn't _know how Stiglitz was involved. And then I was given this.'

The Colonel drew from his pocket a long thin chain made of brass. Suspended at the bottom, swinging heavily like a pendulum, was a heavy locket, its etched face cradling a smooth chunk of amber.

Katerina's hand went to her neck, where the locket normally hung; she let out a gasp.

'But I left it…' she whispered, near speechless.

'In your father's house? Yes, in a wooden box, hidden underneath your mattress… exactly where _Sturmbannführer _Dietrich said he had claimed it from,' the Colonel said gleefully. 'Would you like to open it, or shall I?'

Katerina felt a sudden spurt of betrayal twist her heart. She had thought Axel a friend – he was good, kind… but he was loyal to a fault. She had forgotten that.

'Alongside highlighting Stiglitz's role in this sorry tale, the locket provided another link between you and Sergeant Donowitz. I found several notes, all signed by you, in an abandoned flat that The Basterds had been occupying. This locket,' he held it up and smiled cruelly, 'was mentioned in a few of said notes.'

Katerina watched as the Colonel's deft fingers undid the clasp on the locket and opened it. His manicured nails slipped under the picture of Bruno and revealed Hugo's face, folded down the middle. Then he pried out the second photo – of Liesel, Katerina's mother – and exposed Donny.

'How do they feel, do you think, to know that their likenesses hang so close to your heart… and your breasts?' The Colonel asked, turning to Katerina and smirking.

'Please may I have it?' Katerina pleaded softly. 'I was a fool not to confess straight away. I would ask to explain myself, before you throw me in a cell to await whatever end you have planned.'

The Colonel handed her the locket and sat back in his seat. 'Go on,' he ordered. 'I'm waiting.'

'It was snowing,' she began. 'I had left the house; Marie and father were fighting again, so I just left. Foolish. So foolish. Some soldiers were harassing me, but then Major Hellstrom stopped them. We walked for a while, towards northern Paris. He pushed me to the ground and hit me…' she trailed off, but then took a deep breath and continued. 'He raped me. I was screaming for help and then suddenly someone was there. It turned out to be Donny. Donny pulled the bastard off me and killed him, but I was so afraid… I don't remember much of it. I woke the next morning and they were all around me – all of them. Aldo the Apache, Donny, Hugo… I ran away from them, too. And that morning Hugo came to see me. He warned me that Aldo would want to use me to spy on my father. Even asked me to, as well. But I refused. I'm not a traitor, Oberst_. _I refused them. And then Donny showed up at the house and he was so strong and he held me while I cried and I wasn't even thinking who he was or what he did and I didn't care if he had killed a hundred men but then I did care but instead of being afraid I was proud…

'I saw Hugo in the newspaper and I couldn't bear it. I had to see him, so I did. Then Mayer found us and father hit me so much. But then Axel – _Sturmbannführer _Dietrich – came to the house and I knew what you wanted with me. I never meant to betray anyone, Oberst, I swear. On my life, on the life of my brother… It was selfishness that led me here. And now I can do nothing. Foolish, to think I could lie. Please accept my apologies.'

Her voice quietened as she finished, and she dared not look up at the Colonel's face, for fear he had not believed her.

'I'm not a cruel man, Katerina,' he lied. She knew it was a lie. 'Whatever people think of me. I am like our fair Axel: a loyal man. I care for my country. I care for my _Führer_ and the people of Germany, and I would not want to see such a faithful, sweet subject as yourself come to any harm because of a few simple mistakes.'

'What would you have me do?' she asked, fearing the answer.

Colonel Hans Landa put his fingertips together and thought. 'Two options have availed themselves to me,' he began. 'The first is that you never contact either of these two men again, and instead engage yourself to _Obersturmführer_Gottlieb.'

Katerina shook her head. 'I will not spend the rest of my life like my stepmother, Oberst, I simply can't.'

'Yes, that's what I thought…' The Colonel rubbed his eyes and then leant back in his chair. 'The second option is one you will like even less. Keep both men in your bed. Wait for the opportune time, when they are both well and truly in love with you, then reveal each man to the other. It will break them, but more importantly, it will break The Basterds.'

'_No!'_ Katerina gasped.

'I personally like the second option the best, _fräulein_. After your work is finished, the _Führer _will be unhindered in his righteous conquest of this country and both the German and French inhabitants of Paris will sleep easier for knowing that such a group of terrorists will bother them no longer,' the Colonel explained. He shrugged. 'Who knows, you may even get a shining medal for your services to the _Führer_…'

'I won't do it.'

'You will, actually, _fräulein_. Because I'm warming to the idea of a safer city, and so will the _Führer_, when I tell him of your little exploits…'

Katerina stood up and shouted at him.

'You cannot make me do this!' she screamed. 'Throw me in a cell and try me for treason but_ I will not do this thing_!'

'What about for the life of your brother?'

Silence reigned in the small room in which they sat. Katerina sank back into her seat and gaped openly at the Colonel.

'You wouldn't…' she whispered.

'To protect my _Führer_? To protect his Germany? I would do _anything._'


	9. Ihre Augen

Aldo Raine was dreaming of his children. He dreamt rarely, and those times he did, the dreams were bad. However, this one was pleasant; Aldo held his newborn daughter in his arms and gazed down at her wrinkled face and felt his heart explode. She mewled at him, crying for her mother and the milk in her breasts. And Aldo turned to his wife and handed over his daughter and they smiled together.

And then he was awake.

He lay on his bedroll for a few moments, studying the low ceiling above him. Counting to three, he rolled off the pallet and stood up. It was dark, but he could see the faint outlines of his Basterds all around him.  
In the corner, a sudden pulse of orange light from a cigarette illuminated the smoker's face. Hugo Stiglitz looked furious in the foggy glow, his eyebrows drawn together and mouth stern.

'Stiglitz.' Raine nodded a greeting, ignoring the characteristic anger that seeped from the Sergeant.

'Lieutenant,' Hugo replied.

The German picked up a flask beside his feet and threw it to Raine. Raine caught it deftly, opened it, and took a hearty swig. The alcohol was potent – more so even than the moonshine liquor he had brought with him – and he coughed, screwing up his face.

'Is good?' Hugo asked, chuckling roughly.

'Funny,' Raine said sarcastically, tossing the flask back.

He dug in a bag and pulled out some bread; it was hard and stale, but Raine didn't particularly care. Folding the bread over a chunk of cheese, he took a large bite and sat down beside Hugo.

'How's the baker?' he asked.

By 'the baker', Raine meant to man who was hiding them. They had been taking refuge in the spacious cellars beneath a beer hall in Saint-Mandè ever since the Nazis had discovered their last hideout – it had been a week, and they were laying low for a while. The owner of the beer hall – and therefore, the cellars – was a slender Frenchman by the name of Sergè. He had acquired the nickname 'the baker' on the first day that The Basterds had met him. The name had been given to him on the basis that he looked like a baker that had worked in Donny and Zimmerman's hometown. It sprung from a comment and became Sergè's new name.

On the day of the French surrender, Sergè had helped escort almost two hundred Jews from Paris to Le Mans, and from there they had travelled further south and escaped into Spain – since then, he had been sheltering Jews in his cellars until they could be safely moved. In all, he had helped save thousands.

Hearing of this, Raine had immediately visited the beer hall and had been granted use of the cellars for as long as was needed. The baker was honoured to be helping those who would – and, more importantly, _could –_ bring down the High Command.

Apart from having to share the cellars occasionally with scared Jewish families – who all were impassioned upon meeting the Basterds – there was not one criticism to be heard about their new accommodation – except from the unvoiced faults.

Hugo and Donny shared the same one – though neither knew that the other felt the same way. The beer hall, although situated in the centre of Paris, was just too far from Katerina – a good half-hour's tram journey. It was no longer a case of sneaking out to see her – both men had to think up new excuses that might cover at least two hours' worth of time. But neither of them had seen her in a long time. For Hugo, it was only six days – the night when they had fucked against a wall in the abandoned basement, surrounded by snow – but for Donny, it had been almost three weeks. The last time he had seen Katerina was the night when he had given her the locket he had stolen from the body of a woman caught in crossfire between him and a Nazi soldier. Both men missed Katerina terribly, but neither one of them voiced their complaints to anyone.

As Hugo sat beside his Lieutenant, though, all he thought of was Katerina. The soft cries that whistled through her clenched jaw as he thrust into her; her gentle kisses after he was finished; the sweet warmth between her thighs… and her eyes. Her beautiful dark eyes, set in shadowed sockets, which seemed to drink in the sight of him and relish in its taste. Oh, how she was beautiful.

A hatch in the ceiling that led to the beer hall opened and a set of legs appeared, reviving Hugo from his reverie. Donny dropped through the trapdoor and landed awkwardly, swearing. With him came a burst of light; it was clearly day outside, and the mid-October sunshine had filled the beer hall above and spilled through the hatch. In the pale light, the letter Donny clutched in his fist was unmistakeable.

'I know she's been talking to the Nazis,' Donny started as he handed the letter to his Lieutenant, ' but now it looks like she wants to talk to us.'

'What does it say?' Hugo asked curtly, before Raine had even opened it.

'She wants to meet,' Raine said, his eyes skimming the paper. 'This evening, late. She says there's an abandoned flat near to her house that we can go to.'

'I know where it is,' Hugo said. It was the same flat they had last met.

'Where did you find this?' the Lieutenant asked of Donny.

'She as good as gave it to me – clearly knows we're watching her. Just came out of her house this morning, waved it about a bit and put it on the wall. There weren't no-one with her – the Nazi father and mother had already gone out in the car somewhere.'

'Blödes Fotze,' Hugo interjected. Katerina's father had hit her. He deserved to die.

Donny ignored his German brother-in-arms and kept talking.

'How many of us will go?'

'I'll take Stiglitz, Hirschberg and Utivich. Don't want to scare the girl,' Raine decided.

Donny looked as though he would challenge the decision, but Raine raised an eyebrow and the younger man backed down.

'I will meet you there tonight,' Hugo announced. Then he scaled the ladder and disappeared. It was a normal thing for Hugo to do – leave suddenly –and the other two thought nothing of it. But Hugo had only one thing on his mind – the time he could spend with Katerina.

* * *

Katerina too had received a letter that day; it was meant for her father, but she sat reading it in the dining room, the table before her littered with half-filled cups of coffee and scrunched up pieces of paper, tinted orange in the late afternoon sunshine. She had been sat there for almost three hours, drafting and re-drafting a letter to The Apache. She didn't know how to make it sound afraid, and at the same time proud and determined. It was hard because, for one, she was not afraid of him – Landa could do so much more to her – and also, she had no idea what to write.

Katerina had held out a week before Landa had visited her and demanded to know why she had not left the house. She had been trying to forget everything; curled up beneath her quilt, maybe asleep, maybe not – it was hard to tell, for both states were a pure torment of blackness and tears – until Madeleine had roused her, washed her, dressed her, and helped her down the stairs to the front room, where Landa waited. He had sipped his tea and asked politely about her wellbeing. And then he had shouted. And then he had hit her. Only once.

And then Landa had been replaced with Axel – Katerina couldn't remember how that had happened – and he had gently wiped the blood and tears from her face and whispered to her of love and sorrow.

'The end will come, Katerina. If you truly love these men, you will create as much happiness in these coming weeks as you can – not only for yourself, but for them as well. Do not be stupid, for I know you are not. You are stronger than this. I may not be able to stop the pain you will endure before this is over, but I _can _help you. I am not Hans Landa. I care for you, even if I should not. Live through this, and know that you will always be stronger than he is. Because love_, _Katerina, is stronger than hate.'

But as she sat at the table, drinking cold coffee and reading her father's letter, she wondered if Axel had been right. Was her love for Hugo and Donny and Bruno greater than the hate that Landa bore for The Basterds? Katerina wasn't sure. And the letter in her hands hardly helped – it just added to her list of worries, but also removed one.

It was written in a concise, feminine hand: blue-black ink on thick white paper. Katerina had recognised the writing on the envelope and had opened it immediately. It was Landa's handwriting. Addressed to her father, the letter detailed Katerina's position in the design of removing all terrorist threats from the country, and expressed the pointed suggestion that she could – and _would – _be left to her own devices. There was also a barely veiled threat concealed within the last few sentences which even a fool would be able to spot: Katerina was being watched, and if she were to do anything out of the norm – and have no excuse for it – the whole family would be imprisoned as terrorist aides.

It meant that Henrik would no longer have any excuse to beat her on the grounds that she was spending time in 'male company', as she was now doing so with the permission of one of the highest-ranked officers in the whole of Hitler's entourage. And for that, at least, Katerina was grateful.

She finally lay down the letter, after reading it about half a hundred times. Eyeing it suspiciously, as though afraid that Landa himself might materialise out of the words, Katerina stood up and cleared all her failed attempts at Aldo's letter into the wastepaper basket, then piled her dirty cups onto a tray and carried them downstairs to the kitchen to be washed.

As she returned to her bedroom via the servants' staircase, Katerina heard a knock on the door and Ada's voice echoing in the stairwell. She continued upstairs, though, not caring whom it was. Most likely her parents had returned from wherever they had been; either that, or it was Mayer come to check up on her. Katerina wondered if he had received a similar letter from Landa, and if he had, whether he would leave her alone because of it.

Ada knocked on her door lightly and told her that it was a soldier waiting downstairs. Katerina thanked her, but dressed slowly. Even if it were Hugo returned to her, she would barely be able look at him without imagining how much he would hurt when she broke him. It had been the same that morning, when she had given Donny the letter for Aldo. Katerina had taken one glance at his face and burst into tears. He had embraced her still, not knowing why she cried, but she couldn't stop, and soon he let her go, looking helpless.

Katerina closed her eyes to expel the memory, and succeeded – just. After a few moments of silence, she fastened Donny's locket round her neck and glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked older than she had done; taller, slenderer. Her pale hair was knotted in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, but some tendrils had untied themselves and hung about her face like wisps of smoke. The clothes she had put on belonged to Marie, who could no longer fit into them – her belly was growing fast, quick with child as she was. A loose, pale purple silk blouse, patterned with white flowers, and a skirt that hugged her slim waist and legs. She looked – again – like Liesel. Fingering the locket and thinking of her mother, Katerina descended the stairs slowly and crossed to the front room, her shoes echoing in the high-ceilinged hallway.

Hugo waited inside, the uniform he wore crisp and straight. He turned as she entered, and raked his eyes up her body to her face.

'Ach, Ihre Augen,' he whispered.

He reached out and touched her face, traced her jawline and lips, caressed the soft skin over her cheekbone and the faded bruise, and pushed away the strands of hair covering her ears. And Katerina swallowed back tears and leant forwards, brushing her nose against his. The fragile kiss that followed was tender and gentle. It was soft and – for Hugo – excruciatingly slow. He wanted to push her up on the wall and fuck her again, to feel her breath against his neck and her fingers on his chest, her skin on his. For Katerina, the kiss was an apology. She was apologising for the pain she would cause him, and the pain she would cause Donny too. Then Hugo deepened the kiss and ran his tongue over her lower lip and gripped her arms like he was drowning.

But Katerina couldn't take it. The pleasure in her heart and the fear in her mind crashed together like waves against a cliff and she seemed to shatter from the pain. Suddenly, surprising even herself, she pushed him away, falling backwards until her spine hit the wall.

'Hugo!' she gasped, not truly knowing why.

'Rina?'

'I…' Katerina couldn't find words. _Too much, too much, too much love!_

Hugo took a step towards her and reached out. His touch evoked bursts of hate and pain and fear, and passion; she hit him away and fled.

Running through the hall, she hurled open the front door and threw herself down the steps, pure desperation giving her feet wings. She was halfway down the street where they had last met when Hugo caught up with her and grabbed hold of her arms.

'Katerina!' he yelled, straight into her face – a face now dripping with angry tears.

'Hugo, I cannot love you!' Katerina cried. 'I cannot!'

Hugo took a step back, shock on his face.

'Because of your father?'

'Nein! Because of me! I am not… I cannot… _You should not love me!' _

'Why?' Hugo demanded. 'Give me a reason, Rina. I will not leave you until you do.'

'Hugo…' Katerina sobbed loudly, her body shaking.

Hugo silenced her with another kiss – hungry and angry and afraid and void of care. He crushed his lips onto hers and she kissed him back, equally as furious and scared.

Hugo unlocked the basement flat they had utilised last time and pushed her onto the bed, positioning himself over her; she clawed at his shirt and the skin of his stomach and felt the soft hair that trailed down from his belly. And Hugo pulled off his own shirt, and hers as well, and kissed the silken skin of her breasts. She moaned and writhed beneath him, her hips rolling sensuously, feeling the hardness of him flush against the warm heat of her navel. She scratched his back and drew blood, and Hugo hissed with pain – or lust. It was hard to discern between anger and pain anymore – especially for Katerina. Nothing made sense – nothing was there, save for Hugo's skin on hers, the pulsing heartbeat beneath her palms, and the urgent need to claim his body into her own. And as he slipped inside, between her thighs, and clenched his buttocks against her fists, a surge of pure love swept through her body like a tidal wave.

And then they lay together on the bed, their limbs entwined and a gentle wetness underneath them. Katerina breathed onto Hugo's warm neck, her head nestled against his shoulder, and traced the pale scar that cut over his ribs and down his side. She nearly slept, but Hugo would ever so tenderly kiss her eyelids, and she would open her eyes to meet her mouth with his.

'I am sorry, Rina,' he mumbled eventually.

Katerina pushed her self onto her elbows to gaze at him quizzically.

'Whatever for, Hugh?'

'Making you… so unhappy,' Hugo said quietly.

'No, Hugo. Earlier, I was confused. I didn't know what to do. But now I do. I love you, and I won't stop just because of my father or Mayer or Hitler – no one can stop me now.'

And it was true – she now knew what she was going to do. So much pain in her past – her mother's death, Dieter's attack, Henrik's brutality… she deserved happiness. And Hugo was her happiness. She deserved him. And knowing the torture she would put him through – it almost didn't matter, because she was doing it for love. She loved him, and this way, he would go away to America instead of being killed at Landa's hand.

'Why do you speak of this Obersturmführer-SS Fotze?' Hugo asked again, more interested that defensive.

'My father has engaged us,' Katerina lied. It was the only excuse she could think of to explain her behaviour. 'It is what he wanted this whole time, and now… I cannot refuse him, Hugh.'

'Yes you can!' Hugo said sharply.

'Hugo, you do not know my father!' Katerina replied, angry. She stood up and pulled on her blouse, buttoning it up furiously. 'Were I to refuse, who knows what he would do?'

Hugo sat up on the bed and caught her arms, pulling her down onto his lap. She didn't refuse; in fact she turned to him and let him kiss her face again and again and again.

'Dieter is dead,' Hugo whispered finally, in a rare moment of emotional empathy. 'And he will not come back.'

'But Henrik is the same –'

'No he is not, Schatze. He is your father, and he loves you.'

Katerina ran her hand over her cheek, where her father's anger had left its mark. He did not love her. He could not.

'Hugo, he loves me no more than Dieter did, that my stepmother does. He loves me no more than the English do – no more than the Jews do. To them, I am a monster, who stands idly by whilst their families are torn apart. And to my father, I am unwanted, and useless; I am loathed by him simply because I was not a man.'

'Schatze, what does it matter if he does not love you?' Hugo breathed into her ear, his voice warm and rich. 'For I do.'


	10. Elspeth, Elias and Naomi

'I will inform on my father for you, if that is what you wish,' Katerina said slowly in English, her voice heavily accented with the inborn lilt of a German speaker.

'And why this change of heart?' Aldo demanded, ever suspicious.

Katerina looked around at the Basterds who surrounded her. They were still in the basement flat that Hugo and she had made love in earlier that day – the two of them had not moved since Hugo had told her that he loved her – they made love again and again, kissed and talked about Germany before the war, and how it would be after. Hugo had been embarrassed, almost, because of what he had said, but Katerina had kissed his hands and chest and soothed him gently, and he had smiled and forgotten his anxiety. The Basterds had arrived just after nine o'clock, and the two Germans were waiting for them, both dressed again and finding it hard to hide their passion.

The men who stood around her now were not as intimidating as Katerina had remembered – the day after Dieter's attack, she had fled their hideout in pure fear. Now, though, seeing through eyes that Landa had moulded, these men were just that – men.

The man who had introduced himself as Utivich was short – barely as tall as Katerina herself. His hair was thick and black, darker than Donny's, and pushed back from his face in a slight quiff. The other man who had come with Aldo was Hirschberg, a curly-haired joker whose smile was infectious.

All four of them were sat around the old wooden table in the centre of the basement flat. Hugo was outside, 'guarding the door'. But any fool could see he felt uncomfortable in Katerina's presence because he could not show her his love.

'Yeah,' Hirschberg said, grinning. 'Why the change of heart?'

'My father… is abusive. And after all that I have suffered at the hands of these monsters, I am willing to betray them.'

'Betray?' Aldo asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Betraying no longer,' Katerina amended. 'My allegiances lie elsewhere now.'

'Is that right?' Aldo drawled.

'Yes. Apache I have no qualms about giving you these informations. In fact, I have some for you now.'

At that moment, Hugo returned, glancing at Katerina before turning this attention to The Apache.

'There's Nazis outside,' he said shortly.

'Use your knife,' The Apache said. Then he turned to Katerina. 'Maybe you should watch this, Friedmann. You might enjoy it.'

'No, thank you,' Katerina replied dryly.

Hugo left again, and from outside they could hear the muffled sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Katerina blinked.

'What d'you know, then, Friedmann?'

Katerina took a deep breath. _Here we go…_

'In two weeks, there is a film premiere here in Paris. The film is _Stolz der Nation_, one of Goebbels' so-called 'epics'. Anyway, Goebbels has invited most of the High Command – Goering, Rohm, Bormann, etcetera, etcetera. I only know because my father is one of the invited members. It will not be easily accessible, of course. Goebbels has made Colonel-SS Hans Landa the chief of security. But surely it will be worth the try.'

Aldo had been nodding as she spoke, and when she finished, he smirked and said, 'We know.'

'You know?' Katerina was shocked. The invitations had only been sent out two days ago!

'It's safe to tell you, I trust.'

'Ja wohl! I will not deceive you, Apache,' she assured him.

The Apache pulled a snuffbox from an inside pocket and sniffed a pinch through each nostril. Then he clicked the box shut and slipped it back into his coat.

'You'd better not, Friedmann,' he warned. 'I don't take well to those kinds o' shenanigans.'

Katerina didn't truly understand what he had said, but she appreciated well enough what The Apache was implying.

'There is something else, Apache,' Katerina said suddenly, remembering. 'My father was speaking of it. A group of Jews have been hiding just outside of the city in Domont and plan to escape towards the Channel. My father spoke of an ambush, no more than twenty soldiers, but there should be an officer there, overseeing the procedures. Perhaps Hugo – I mean, Stiglitz – will have the chance to cross off another on his list. It is in two days; the ambush happens at midnight, thirty kilometres out of Paris, in the d'Halatte forest.'

While she spoke, Hugo reappeared, his uniform spattered with blood. With him came the low moans of men dying.

'Everything dealt with?'

Hugo replied with a curt nod.

'Right then!' The Apache continued, standing up and buttoning his coat. 'I'll have one o' the boys come see you some time this week.'

'Not this week, Apache. My father has been granted leave. It will be hard for me to see anyone.' She sent a slanted look towards Hugo as she spoke, hoping he understood.

'All right, then. Want one o' us to walk you home?'

'I can make it on my own, thank you, Apache.'

'Even after what happened wi' that rapist?' he asked, uneasy.

Katerina stopped her mind from returning to that night with more effort than was shown on her face. _I am strong, love is strong; hate is weak, I am strong, He is nothing. _

'I'll be fine.'

She left the flat before The Basterds did, walking quickly back down the street, ignoring the blood on the ground and the bodies. As she climbed the steps to her father's house, there came a call from behind her. It was the small man named Utivich.

'I uh…' he said, embarrassed. 'I was told to deliver a message to you, from Donowitz.'

'Yes?'

'He said to tell you… and I hope I say it right. I don't know what it means, so I'm sorry if it don't sound right. But he said to say this: _Ich fühle Mich nur Lust und Liebe für dich, mein Liebling_.'

Utivich's German was awfully accented, but Katerina understood all the same. She smiled, thinking of Donny's warm hands and dirty fingers, and the way he felt beneath her.

'Thank you.' She leant over and kissed him gently on the cheek. ' Stay alive, Utivich.'

* * *

_Three Days Later_

Katerina woke early, and dressed in the early-morning light that bled through the half-open window. The house was quiet and empty. It was a Sunday, and neither the servants nor Dubois was ever around until at least midday. She left the house and brought a newspaper and some bread and fruit from the early market at _Place d'Iéna_, then went and ate her breakfast on the bridge that crossed the Seine, gazing at the dark, swirling waters beneath her as they fled away towards the sea. The rising sun reflected off the surface, painting dazzling pictures on the metal underside of the bridge. Katerina stood there for a while, watching the water pass by, half-reading the newspaper that fluttered ever so gently in her hands.

By the time the car drew up, it was mid-morning, and the sun had paled somewhat. The road over the bridge was busy with cyclists and pedestrians – and swarming with soldiers. Most stopped when the Colonel got out of the car, and a rising chorus of 'Heil Hitler' resounded through the air. Landa returned the salutes, then his eyes fell on Katerina and he crossed the pavement to lean against the railing beside her.

'Bonjour, Mademoiselle,' he said jovially.

Katerina composed herself and refused to be frightened. She flicked her newspaper shut and shook the Colonel's leather-gloved hand.

'Bonjour, Colonel.'

Landa turned out to sweep his eyes over the river; he rested his forearms on the railing and wound his fingers together. He drank in his surroundings with an air of desperation and frowned.

'Do you mind if we switch to German, Katerina? I fear that my inadequate French is rather coarse to such ears as yours.'

'Please, Oberst,' replied Katerina scathingly. 'Your French is perfect and you know that very well. But let us speak German, if it is what you would like.' She sent him a pointed glare. 'Please tell me, Oberst, why you have sought me out today.'

Landa frowned again, but otherwise ignored her disrespect, chewing the inside of his cheek – a childlike habit.

'I heard some troubling news this morning, Katerina,' Landa began. 'Last night, a group of Jews bound for England were ambushed by a patrol of German soldiers, fronted by SS-Scharführer Garren Müntze, a successful and promising officer.'

Katerina hid a grin – she knew what had happened.

'I would have thought you would be happy to hear such news, Oberst' she replied. 'It is surely reasonable for a man in your position to be glad of these state enemies being caught red-handed in their attempt to flee the Führer's jurisdiction.'

Landa laughed.

'You have learnt your words well, fräulein, but the plot thickens, and calls for improvisation! Or maybe you have the next act memorised already.'

'In fact, I do.'

Katerina put her newspaper under her arm and began to walk, followed by the Colonel and – moving as slow as they – the car. They had crossed the bridge before Katerina spoke again.

'I had to come up with something convincing, Oberst. I am not so much of a fool to believe I could lie to Aldo the Apache – and what is more convincing that the truth?'

Landa nodded, appreciative.

'You know this play well, Katerina,' Landa complimented her, drawing out his conceit. 'One might be led to believe you have experience in this field.'

'Please, Oberst. If this plan of yours is to work, I must make them believe that my loyalties lie only with them. A few dead soldiers is a small price to pay for the end of The Basterds' reign of terror, am I not correct? And that is surely the assumption war itself is based on.'

Landa mulled over her words for a few moments, and then nodded, seemingly accepting her excuse.

His car stopped beside them and the driver signalled through the window. Landa waved him away disparagingly with a hand, but climbed into the car all the same. He rolled down the window and uttered one final threat.

'Just remember, fräulein, what will become of you andyour family if you are lying to me.'

Katerina forced her face to remain calm, and watched as the car drove away, leaving behind it a slowly dissipating bloom of grey smoke.

'Auf Wiedersehen,' Katerina muttered. 'Arschloch.'

* * *

The Basterds had eight days before their final appointment in Paris; a week until the meeting with their German aide; and six days until they met the English Lieutenant Archibald Hicox.

Aldo Raine stood in the cellars of the beer hall in Saint-Mandé, half way through briefing his men on the final plans. They were gathered around him – all seven that were left. Donny, listening with solemn anticipation; Wicki, sat in the corner, sharpening his knife; Zimmerman grinning; Stiglitz attempting to light his flimsy roll-up; Hirschberg and Utivich watching with fervent expressions; and Omar, smiling distantly, his eyes focused on Aldo's gesturing hands.

'We'll meet with this Tommy late on the Friday evenin', give him a uniform and he'll accompany Stiglitz and Wicki into the tavern. There, you'll all o' you meet this British spy and have a few drinks… don't get too loaded, though, y'all gotta escort her from the premises and you're posin' as officers. Officers don't get drunk here, as y'all should know. Then we meet at the house opposite and make the plan for the premiere, based on what the spy's told us. Sound good?'

'Yes sir,' The Basterds chorused.

'But for now,' continued The Apache, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops, 'we gotta eat and sleep. You guys ain't no good if you don't get no kip. Someone go upstairs for food, and stop fucking smoking, Stiglitz, you're makin' it hard to breathe down here.'

The Basterds scattered, Hirschberg ascending the ladder to find some supper for them all; Donny and Zimmerman returning to their bedrolls; Utivich and Omar resuming their card game. Wicki and Stiglitz, however, stayed immobile. Hugo exhaled smoke in a long, thin stream from between his parted lips, completely ignoring what his Lieutenant had requested of him, and not once did Wicki revert his attention from his knife.

Aldo glared at Stiglitz for a moment, then gave up and dropped into a crouch beside his bedroll, pushing the blankets into a more comfortable seat. When Hirschberg returned with the food, Aldo spooned a portion of stew into his Billycan, ripped off a hunk of bread, and went back to his bedroll. As he ate, he fingered the photographs of his wife and children that he kept safe in his coat pocket, along with a single letter that she had written to him.

Her name was Elspeth, and she was beautiful. Long, curling black hair framed a face of smooth skin, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her bright brown eyes had been passed on to both their children, who had her hair too – both dark beauties, sweet to look upon but with mischievous streaks a kilometre wide. Elspeth smoked, too; it was the one thing Aldo disliked about her. In everything else that she did and said, he loved her.

Aldo wondered what his children would be doing, and whether it was day or night back in America. Would they be sleeping, side-by-side in the bed they shared? Or might they be at school, or playing with the neighbours, or pestering their mother? A sudden burst of longing surprised Aldo. He hadn't thought about Elias and Naomi in such a long time, and he had forgotten just how much he missed them. Them _and _their mother. He hoped he would make it back to them. But the chances of his surviving seemed to get slimmer and slimmer as each day went by. And now, with this final mission… he couldn't put his Basterds in danger, not without him joining them. No matter how much they annoyed him, they were still his men.

Aldo gazed around at his boys, and frowned. Were they capable of pulling this off? Could they really do this, the last order they had been given? Had they not done enough already? Were they to have survived this long only to die bringing down two or three members of the High Command?

Aldo had hoped he would be there to witness the end of Hitler himself, the monster who had initiated this whole stupid war. But it seemed that instead he would die, or go back to America, without having even one shot at the Austrian-born maniac. It was a shame, he thought. Such a waste of talent. Give any of these boys a chance at Hitler, and the beast would be dead in a matter of seconds. Even if it cost them their lives. The sacrifice of one to save many – it was in fact the theory that war itself was founded on. And any one of the men surrounding Raine – Hugo Stiglitz, who had killed thirteen Gestapo barehanded; Donny, who murdered Nazis with the bat he so lovingly cleaned; or Wicki, who could kill a man with a toothpick – would be willing to give themselves to the cause that had brought them to that cellar. Because to fight against hate was to fight for love. And what wouldn't a man do to fight for love?

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_Well I guess it's getting towards the end of the story, and God am I excited! Hopefully you'll like where this is going, but I'm not so sure. I really do want to know what you think. I appreciate you all taking the time to read what I write, but please, how am I to know what you like and dislike if you do not tell me? I would very much appreciate maybe one or two reviews of this chapter, mainly because it is quite different to the others - the Aldo part is, anyway. But thank you and thank you for reading. Au revoir! _


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